


The Bread Route

by AcrylicMist



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Because Dirk's an idiot, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Development, EVERYONE - Freeform, Epiloge, Fluff, Literally everyone - Freeform, Multi, Non-cannon compliant, SBURB/SGRUB, Talk of Suicide, Worldbuilding, everyone gets the happily ever after they deserve, fixit fic, meat or candy is bullshit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-01-23 14:58:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 34,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18552109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AcrylicMist/pseuds/AcrylicMist
Summary: Meat, Bread, or Candy, John. Meat, Bread, or Candy.





	1. Like Bread for the Hungry

**Author's Note:**

> FUCK HUSSIE FUCK HUSSIE FUCK HUSSIE FUCK HUSSIE FUCK HUSSIE FUCK HUSSIE  
> I CAN’T EVEN *BELIEVE* THAT HE WOULD DO THIS TO HIS OWN PEOPLE.  
> WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT THE _ **FUCK**_????  
> FUCK.  
> NO.  
> SOMEONE HAS TO FIX THIS.  
> AND I GUESS IT’LL BE ME.
> 
> Warning! This contains spoilers for the homestuck epilogues and prologues

The Bread Route  
An epilogue fix it fic because by God somebody has to save us

 

Chapter one. Like bread for the hungry

John was dreaming in anime again. 

It starts with a crack. Everything else rises up from that like steam: a trembling thread that cuts through space in jagged lines, splintering the void into razor-sharp shards of putrefying leptons and quarks popping apart like raw eggs in a microwave. It’s coming undone at a subatomic level, from the bottom up, from the inside out. From the top down it looks like the eye of a storm—a black hole so supermassive that it spans the width of eternity. It turns infinity into something as thin and fragile as cellophane; shreds it of its dimensions, a piece of paper pinched together at either end, a hole poked through it.

At the center of that hole the edges can be heard fraying. Pandemonium, as continuity buckles in the middle and the two ends come smashing together. Around the hole, ghosts scream. They claw at the dying borders of their dreams with fingernail-chipping desperation. They whip together like the wind, trailing the mutilated streaks of their hypothetical futures with them. It’s a multifractal neon cyclone of primordial conclusion. A churning blender of hyperfinal, catastrophically terminal, overwhelmingly permanent double-death. The screaming distorts and plunges low as it gets closer to the cavity.

At the center, that distortion turns into an eerie music. That’s where the cacophony ends—the shattering, the screaming, the squelching, the sounds of elemental particles being torn apart like string cheese shoved through a meat grinder, then dumped down a strangely melodious garbage disposal. It all returns to the same tonic dominant, matching pitch and tone, ironing out the rebellious flats and sharps until the discordance becomes exquisite. A subharmonic symphony that can only be heard in the bones. At the dead center of the event, it is extremely quiet. A silence made of all the suffering that limitless sempiternity can hold, bleeding together until the prism turns to obsidian. It’s too vast to comprehend, too black to behold without closing your eyes. Retreating to the back of your own eyelids is to seek the comfort of a familiar darkness. It is to reject an absolute tenebrosity so perfectly alien, it threatens to rip the humanity right through your eye sockets.

This is the end of everything. This is the end of Paradox Space. You...

> Wake up.

Daylight streams through your window in bars of soft gold. Outside, the world is clearly not ending. Everything is as peaceful as it’s been for the last seven and ten thousand years. Peaceful, but not quiet, as you can hear the sounds of the Salamander Village waking up around you, ready to go off and start each of their individual days. 

You feel your heart pounding inside you, a staccato rhythm of panic that settles back into placidity as the seconds pass and nothing happens. You run your fingers through your black hair only to find it sweaty and gross. You need to shower. 

Your phone buzzing distracts you. It’s Rose, leaving message after message. 

You answer her, putting off that shower until after the conversation. It’s been too long since you’ve talked to rose. She takes priority. 

ROSE: Since when are you known to operate your telephone?  
JOHN: since... i don’t know. has it really been that long since i called?  
ROSE: I can’t remember the last time.  
JOHN: neither can i. anyway, what’s up?  
ROSE: First of all, happy birthday.  
JOHN: oh, yeah. thanks.  
JOHN: fuck, i forgot.  
ROSE: Am I correct in presuming this April Thirteenth will be as uneventful as the last?  
JOHN: yeah, i don’t want to do anything this year. i hope that’s ok.  
ROSE: Of course it’s ok. It’s your birthday after all.  
JOHN: rose...  
ROSE: Yes?

You wander to the window and watch the salamanders go about their day. All over the neighborhood, the little dad-salamanders are putting on their little rumpled hats and picking up their little suitcases and kissing their little families goodbye for the day. You’ve always been confused about what, exactly, they contribute to the global economy. But it’s pretty cute how much they love playing at being suburban businessmen.

The silence over the phone is growing awkward. You’ve stalled long enough. You decide to just come out and say it. It’s going to bug you like an itch unscratched if you don’t. 

JOHN: i’ve been dreaming in anime again lately.  
JOHN: i have no idea what it could mean.  
ROSE: I see.  
JOHN: it’s horrible, every time.  
JOHN: and i don’t mean because anime is bad or anything. it’s not that.  
JOHN: whenever i have these dreams, everything’s breaking apart.  
JOHN: millions of people are screaming and dying.  
JOHN: i mean, dying permanently. not the kind of bullshit dying that we’ve been doing a lot over the years..  
JOHN: what do you think it all means?  
ROSE: What do I think ‘what’ means?  
JOHN: what do you think it means that i’ve been dreaming in anime?  
ROSE: I don’t have the slightest idea what it means that you’ve been dreaming in anime, John.  
ROSE: To be honest, I...

You wait for Rose to finish her thought. She doesn’t, which is troubling because you have never known Rose to leave a thought unfinished in over ten years of acquaintance. Worried, you pester her.

JOHN: rose... are you ok?  
ROSE: Not exactly.  
JOHN: what’s wrong?  
ROSE: I think my condition’s been getting worse lately.  
JOHN: condition?  
ROSE: It’s why my message probably sounded urgent.  
JOHN: you left 46 messages.  
ROSE: Yes. They were all urgent.  
JOHN: oh.  
ROSE: I don’t think I can wait much longer before telling you.  
ROSE: I held out for as long as I could. I figured your birthday was as good a time as any to let you know.  
JOHN: let me know what?  
ROSE: It’s crept up on me, these last couple of years.  
ROSE: Gradually enough to ignore as it was happening, but I can’t anymore.  
ROSE: Lately the visions have been overwhelming.  
JOHN: visions??  
ROSE: John, I have terrible headaches these days. Talking on the phone doesn’t help at all.  
ROSE: Would you mind flying to my apartment, so we can continue this in person?  
JOHN: oh, yeah. you mean...  
JOHN: now?  
ROSE: Yes, now is the time.  
ROSE: I’ve put it off long enough.

As you hang up the phone, a familiar feeling settles over you. A feeling of...standing? Standing, and being alone. In your bedroom. As a young man. On your birthday. You swear you’ve felt this feeling before. It’s almost like...

A young man stands alone in his bedroom. It just so happens that today, the 13th of April, is this young man’s birthday. Though it was twenty-three years ago when he was given life, and ten years ago when he was given a name, it feels like it is only today that he will begin to understand what all that means.

That young man is YOU, John Egbert.

What will you do?

…

You fly over to Rose’s house. It’s been years since you’ve been here in person. There are flowers growing in the windowsills of the apartment, slightly wilted. The apartment looks indiscreet from outside, except for Kanaya’s supercar that sat like a lion in the driveway, just ready to snarl its fearsome engine at passing motorists.

You peek through the window. Rose is fast asleep on the couch though it couldn’t have been more than thirty minutes since you’d spoken. You slide the balcony door open quietly. 

JOHN: rose?

Her eyes flutter open. She looks like a ghost, and not the kind of ghost that looks and acts exactly like an alive person.

ROSE: How... how long have I been sleeping?  
JOHN: i dunno. i just got here.  
JOHN: are you ok?  
ROSE: I’ll be fine.  
JOHN: that looks like a lot of pills you’re taking there.  
ROSE: Yeah. It’s not what you’re thinking though.  
JOHN: what am i thinking?  
ROSE: These are controlled substances that have been prescribed by a legitimate doctor to ease the symptoms of my condition. I am using them only as instructed.  
JOHN: ok??  
ROSE: So there’s nothing to worry about.  
JOHN: but you said you have a condition. isn’t that...bad?  
You watch her rise in stages. Her arm is trembling where she’s bracing it on the couch.  
ROSE: Oh. Yes. The condition itself is not ideal, obviously. And perhaps it does constitute something to worry about, in the context of a different conversation. All I’m trying to say is, I’m not backsliding, if that’s what you’re wondering.

You spend several pregnant moments saying nothing at all in response to this. You examine Rose’s supine, languid form on the couch, optimistic that she will continue speaking any moment now.

ROSE: I struggled with substance abuse for a while, years ago. Remember?  
JOHN: rose, jesus. i wasn’t going to accuse you of being a drug addict, and i didn’t fly over here to give you an intervention.  
JOHN: it sounded like you had some important stuff to tell me, and the fact that you also seem to be sick is more than a little alarming!  
ROSE: I wouldn’t say I’m sick.  
ROSE: Just having spectacularly debilitating headaches as a result of my visions becoming more frequent.  
JOHN: oh yeah.  
JOHN: what are these visions you’re having?  
ROSE: I’m a Seer of Light, John.  
JOHN: i know.  
JOHN: so you mean like, your standard psychic visions about the future and stuff?  
JOHN: what’s going to happen? should we be worried?  
ROSE: It doesn’t technically pertain to the future. Well, not our future.  
ROSE: My abilities have broadened considerably beyond their previous horizon. They shed light on many unseen events. Past, present, future, in realities and frames of reference that have no intersection with ours at all.  
ROSE: It seems to be an unfortunate side effect of god tier abilities. They can advance at a rate beyond one’s physical ability to keep up with.  
ROSE: Fortunately it doesn’t seem to be happening to anyone other than me.  
JOHN: yeah, can’t say i’ve noticed anything like that.  
JOHN: or improvement in my powers for that matter.  
ROSE: It’s not about gaining additional power, so much as the gradual dissolving of the boundaries between your own awareness and that of your many doomed selves who perished in other timelines.  
ROSE: It’s a slow and apparently rather uncomfortable accretion of knowledge. Perhaps I’m the only one to notice any change, since my aspect explicitly relates to knowledge.  
JOHN: i guess that all makes sense.  
JOHN: so what are these visions showing you?  
ROSE: Many things. They’re quite disjointed, and sometimes hard to rearrange into coherence.  
ROSE: But in totality, I have pieced together a greater understanding of our present situation and all the events that led us here.

You watch Rose stagger to her feet and cross the apartment. At the kitchenette, she knocks back another pill with a practiced motion, no water. Her vacant stare drills into the countertop as she quietly waits for the medication to take effect.

JOHN: ...and?  
ROSE: And what?  
JOHN: what is it about our situation that you wanted to tell me?  
JOHN: is it bad?  
ROSE: Good and bad are words that don’t mean anything, beyond a certain threshold of mortal consideration.  
ROSE: There’s a different scale I’ve come to understand. Another dichotomy that’s less... emotional, I guess?  
ROSE: Consider, instead of the word “good,” using the word “essential.”  
ROSE: And what exists at the opposite polarity from essential is...  
ROSE: Something that is best not to contemplate.  
JOHN: what are you talking about?  
JOHN: this sounds fucked up.  
ROSE: Yes, that sounds like a reaction you would definitely have to the things I’m telling you.  
ROSE: I really should cut it out, and just start from the beginning.  
You follow Rose to the balcony. She raises a hand and points directly into the clear blue sky. She points with purpose, as if to say, there. Right there, precisely, is where the green sun would be, if it still existed.  
ROSE: The green sun is gone.  
JOHN: what??  
ROSE: It has been destroyed. At least, from the current frame of reference it has.  
ROSE: It still existed, and therefore in a way that’s hard to explain, currently exists, over a nearly infinite span of time, presiding over the birth and death of countless universes.  
ROSE: But this universe, our universe, is not one of them.  
JOHN: you saw this in a vision?  
ROSE: No. Jade told me.  
JOHN: she did?  
JOHN: how does she know?  
ROSE: She can’t draw from its power anymore. She no longer has the ability of a First Guardian.  
ROSE: It has been this way for several years. I suspect she has kept this fact on the downlow, however.  
JOHN: that’s...  
JOHN: surprising, i guess?  
JOHN: or maybe not. i dunno, it’s not like she tells me a whole lot these days.  
ROSE: It’s also not like she’s had any particular need to unleash the full fury of the green sun, not here.  
ROSE: Anyway, her account of the sun’s destruction syncs up with the data supplied by my visions. I have no doubt it’s gone.  
JOHN: how did that happen?  
ROSE: It doesn’t matter much, for our purposes.  
ROSE: There was a cataclysmic event. A suicide strike by a very powerful being. Much like the one Dave and I attempted, once upon a time.  
ROSE: But it turned out the explosive force we released was only a catalyst. A causal gesture. What was needed to destroy the sun was a consumptive assault.  
JOHN: consumptive?  
ROSE: The entire sun was swallowed by a supermassive black hole.  
ROSE: I digress though.

You press your eyes shut, just for a moment. Behind them you see a black hole so supermassive that it spans the width of eternity.

You quickly open your eyes again, and pretend to forget what you just saw.

ROSE: There’s really no route through this expository garden path that will adequately cushion you from the bottom line, John.  
ROSE: You will need to travel back into canon and defeat Lord English.

You...

> Shrug and try to look casual.

You pull off the most casual shrug that a guy has ever shrugged when being presented with the inevitability of his own fate. If Rose were looking at you right now, she would be totally convinced that you are approaching this topic with a level of nonchalance that is entirely plausible and genuine. You’re sure of it.

JOHN: yeah, i had a feeling that was going to come up again someday.  
ROSE: I’m sure we all did. That is, even those of us without visions.  
JOHN: i was doing my best not to think about it. i guess we can’t put it off any longer then?  
ROSE: Now is the time. We are rapidly approaching a point of no return. If the decision isn’t made soon, it will be too late. The issue will no longer matter.  
JOHN: when exactly is the point of no return?  
ROSE: Today.  
JOHN: wow.  
JOHN: ok then.  
JOHN: first, one question. um...  
JOHN: why?  
ROSE: Why what?  
JOHN: why do i need to go back and beat him?  
JOHN: i mean, sorry if this is a stupid question. i guess he’s a huge awful monster, and that’s just what you’re supposed to do with huge awful monsters. take them down for their crimes, and such.  
JOHN: but why does he actually need to be defeated at all? to be honest, it’s been years since we’ve even bothered thinking about any of this, and everything seems...

> Take a look around and survey the current status of all life on Earth, which is totally possible to do from the vantage point of a single apartment balcony.

JOHN: fine?  
ROSE: Of course everything is fine here.  
ROSE: We’re outside of canon now.  
JOHN: yeah, i know. what does that actually MEAN though?  
JOHN: are you saying this isn’t really happening?  
ROSE: Of course it’s happening.  
ROSE: Just because certain events take place outside of canon, it doesn’t mean those events are non-canon.  
JOHN: oh.  
ROSE: In other words, there is an important distinction between events which can be considered to occur inside canon, outside canon, and those which are not canon at all.  
ROSE: The day we went through that door and claimed our reward, we passed a threshold between continua marked by differing degrees of relevance, truth, and essentiality.  
ROSE: Those are the three pillars of canon.  
JOHN: what?  
Rose shoots you an irritated look. You know what that look means. It’s reserved for the sort of bozo who just said “what” once too often.  
ROSE: Any event said to take place inside canon will have nonzero values of relevance and essentiality, while maintaining an absolute foundation in truth, by definition.  
ROSE: Whereas events outside canon have diminished values of relevance and essentiality. Or, for the most part, can be considered neither relevant nor essential at all.  
ROSE: But such events can’t be said to be untrue either. Instead, it’s better to regard their truth value as highly conditional.  
ROSE: Are you still following?

> Say “oh, yeah. totally.”

JOHN: oh, yeah. totally.  
ROSE: So to be clear, everything that’s taken place here on Earth C since we exited canon can be considered completely irrelevant, and for the most part, absolutely inessential. Yet none of it can be called untrue.  
ROSE: At least, up until precisely today.  
JOHN: ok.  
JOHN: then what does non-canon mean?  
ROSE: Events that are formally non-canon have no truth whatsoever, by definition.  
ROSE: They may have relevance and essentiality values that are nonzero, or even quite high, but only as projections along an imaginary axis, resulting from highly subjective frames of reference.  
ROSE: But due to those events having no truth, and thus carrying no real weight, the other properties are basically rendered meaningless.  
You can feel your eyes go wide as the gears in your head slow to a stop. The implications of what Rose is saying are as vast as they are completely incomprehensible. Your mind has just been BLOWN.  
ROSE: John?  
ROSE: Are you okay? Your pupils have gone quite wide, thereby facilitating the appearance that your mind has just been blown.  
JOHN: sorry, i’m just trying to wrap my head around this.  
ROSE: You of all people really should have a good intuitive grasp over these concepts already.  
ROSE: You’re the one with the retcon powers, after all.  
JOHN: i know!  
JOHN: like, i mostly get it. i think.  
JOHN: i just wouldn’t have thought to put all of this in such a jargony way.  
ROSE: Sorry. That’s kind of what I do.  
JOHN: it’s fine. i’m just a bit rusty is all.  
JOHN: it feels like it’s been so long since i did, or even thought about... anything that mattered at all.  
ROSE: Yes, the longer we live outside of canon, the more tenuous our relationship with canon becomes.  
ROSE: Hence the urgency.  
JOHN: then what’s going to happen if we keep dragging our feet?  
ROSE: I mentioned that events outside canon have a truth value that tends to be conditional, remember?  
JOHN: um.  
ROSE: Well, I did. But let me put it another way.  
ROSE: As long as we live outside canon, everything that happens will technically be “real,” but only conditionally.  
ROSE: There are certain crucial events inside canon which must happen in order to continue to prop up the legitimacy of events here on Earth C.  
ROSE: And you specifically, John, have a responsibility to make sure those events take place.  
JOHN: and i take it that means going back and killing lord english?  
ROSE: Yes.  
ROSE: His defeat is the keystone to this entire continuity.  
ROSE: Much like his life, in some sick way, governed the overall design of the bridge which that keystone was holding up.  
ROSE: But without it, all of this falls apart. Every thing we’ve been through, in a way that’s impossible for a single mind to fully comprehend, becomes retroactively discredited.  
JOHN: so... reality will be destroyed, or something?  
JOHN: hasn’t that already sort of happened?  
JOHN: i mean, when all the black space started cracking?  
ROSE: No, this consequence isn’t physical, or even a disruption of the timeline. It’s more of a conceptual unraveling.  
ROSE: If you miss the chance to authenticate canon events, something will take place that’s a bit difficult to describe, but I’ve encountered a term for it.  
ROSE: It’s called “dissipation.”  
ROSE: Like, a notional fading. As if something, somewhere, is undergoing a process of “forgetting,” and we are what is being forgotten.  
ROSE: All ideas, people and their full potentialities, possible outcomes and their specific unfolding, all these things live inside conscious frameworks.  
ROSE: The further removed we get from authentication of canon events, the less relevant they become, and they slowly fade from the conscious frameworks which kept them stable.

> Make a theatrically startled expression.

JOHN: ok, i guess we don’t want THAT to happen.  
JOHN: or... unhappen. whatever.  
JOHN: so i just retcon-poof back to english and start like...  
JOHN: brawling with the dude?  
ROSE: Don’t be ridiculous. You wouldn’t last a second.  
ROSE: You’ll need a team.  
ROSE: Also, you don’t want to just dive headlong into a battle with his hulking adult form. That would be tactically foolish, and furthermore, would skip over some very important steps needed to authenticate canon.  
JOHN: like what?  
ROSE: I mentioned that English’s defeat was the keystone to the continuity. But this is an oversimplification.  
JOHN: yikes. well, we sure as fuck wouldn’t want to simplify anything.  
ROSE: John, please don’t be a bitch. I’m unwell, remember?  
JOHN: sorry.  
ROSE: The true keystone, which is a necessary component of his defeat, is the juju.  
ROSE: The house-shaped object you stuck your hand in to gain your retcon powers.  
JOHN: oh yeah.  
ROSE: While empty, it resembles a gap. Like a hole in canon, whose only purpose is to be filled.  
ROSE: In serving that purpose, it grants one with the radical canon-altering powers that would be needed to fill it.  
ROSE: Once filled, it becomes solid. No longer a gap, but a serviceable, load-bearing wedge in our continuity.  
ROSE: Like a keystone.  
ROSE: And once delivered to English and directed his way, it empties itself again, releasing its narrative-bridging payload. It functions as a weapon, and in some manner will bring about his demise.  
JOHN: in some manner?  
ROSE: It’s a complicated artifact. As old and unfathomable as anything else in Paradox Space, like the green sun, or English himself. Don’t worry about it for now.  
ROSE: The important thing is that, in the due course of your travels, you end up loading and unloading this weapon.  
JOHN: how am i going to do that?  
ROSE: Once you set things in motion, it should just happen naturally through the narrative momentum of your journey. I’m really just warning you about it, rather than instructing you.  
JOHN: ok. thanks??  
ROSE: You’re welcome.

Rose looks at her phone. You recognize Kanaya’s distinct typing style in the window. Rose’s thumbs begin to fly across the keypad. She continues to text as she talks.

JOHN: so if we’re going to go back and kill him in time to “authenticate canon,” i guess we have to get going soon.  
JOHN: like today?  
ROSE: Yes.  
JOHN: are you sure you’re actually up for a fight though? no offense, but you’re looking a little worse for the wear.  
ROSE: I’m not going.  
JOHN: oh.  
ROSE: None of us are. Only you.  
JOHN: what?? but you said...  
ROSE: John, this is the victory state.  
JOHN: what the hell does that even mean.  
ROSE: When we went through the door, and passed beyond the threshold of canon, we effectively retired from bearing any responsibility for influencing canon events. We’ve all been sort of decommissioned as active players on the cosmic stage, with severely diminished relevance attributes.  
ROSE: All of us except for you, of course, since you’ve retained your retcon abilities.  
JOHN: ok, i get that. kind of.  
JOHN: except that no, that sounds really stupid  
JOHN: but... couldn’t you all just come along anyway?  
ROSE: We could. But it wouldn’t serve any purpose.  
JOHN: i think that not going on a suicide mission alone o my death serves a purpose!  
ROSE: John please. Let me continue.  
ROSE: I can point out the exact moment in canon you should be disrupting, and how you should disrupt it.  
ROSE: In fact, I’ve already written it down to spare you the trouble of remembering.

Rose leads you back inside and retrieves a letter from her desk. She hands it over, still typing one-handed on her phone. She sits down and you read the letter.

JOHN: huh.  
ROSE: Is anything confusing about my instructions?  
JOHN: no, i remember all this. 

Something sits sour inside you, like curdled milk spoiling in the summer sun until it’s one soggy, undrinkable block of solid curds. 

You exhale and turn the paper over in your hands. The other side is blank. You flip it back over, having fully processed the instructions drafted in the polished purple handwriting. You like how Rose still writes in purple, after all these years. Some things never change.

JOHN: alright. this seems straight forward enough.  


JOHN: i mean, aside from the part where i have to fight an invincible monster.  


JOHN: alone  


JOHN: and probably die a painful death  
ROSE: He isn’t entirely invincible. He will be vulnerable to Dave’s legendary weapon. I believe other gambits should present themselves as well.  
ROSE: I don’t think it would serve the mission well for me to tell you exactly how it will go.  
ROSE: But at least I can offer this bit of encouragement.  
ROSE: If you follow my instructions, English will be defeated.  
ROSE: It is an absolutely essential outcome.  
ROSE: And essential, if you’ll remember, is the word we should be using instead of good.  


JOHN: that sounds like something really fucked up.  


JOHN: it sounds like this will end in a massacre rose. what’s not good, but essential? what the fuck?

You take a seat next to Rose on the couch. There’s got to be a reason why Rose is saying these things. 

> Examine your friend.

Her eyes are closed and her hands are folded in her lap. She’s not asleep, but she looks wasted—like all the life in her has been sucked out through a straw. Like she’s insubstantial. When you were kids you always thought that Rose Lalonde had all the answers, that she could fix any problem with a wall of text and a witty rejoinder. You guess that much about her hasn’t changed. She’s still trying to solve the problems you all left behind. You can’t believe how sick she looks. How did this happen to her?

As much as you respect her, you can’t take her words at face value. She’s asking you to go back into cannon and murder a teenager. You need time to think. 

JOHN: i should probably get going and let you rest.  


JOHN: I need to think about what you’ve told me, dead line or not. this isn’t some thing i can just rush into under prepared.  
ROSE: Oh. Um.  
ROSE: Okay.  


JOHN: is something wrong?

Rose opens her eyes and looks at you, but she says nothing. Just looks.

JOHN: i’m not scared, if that’s what you’re worried about.  
ROSE: Yes. You never were one to give into fear.  
ROSE: I envy that about you. 

Something flickers through her eyes, almost too quick to catch. When she smiles at you, it’s warm and sincere.

ROSE: You’re going to do great, no matter what you decide. 

Rose slides her arms around you. After a while, she releases you from the embrace and gets up to fetch her bottle of pills. She pauses at the bedroom door to look at you one more time.

ROSE: I’ll see you later, John.

She closes the door behind her.

Your phone buzzes in your pocket. It’s a text from Roxy.

> Read text.

It sounds important. You get up to go without even thinking about it. You exit through the sliding glass door and leave it open behind you. The fresh air should do her good. It’s too beautiful a day to spend it inside, anyway. 

...

 

You spend the next few hour flying to the Carapace Kingdom. It’s a great day for flying, just like it was in the Human Kingdom and just like it was in Salamander Village. For whatever faults this paradise you created might have, you sure don’t hear many complaints about the weather. You’re sitting with Roxy and Calliope on a giant, chessboard-pattern tablecloth. It’s a nice touch, you think. But if you spent any time shopping in the Carapace Kingdom, you’d know most things you can buy are chess themed. These harmless remnants of the game seemed to have wired themselves into the carapacians. 

Friendly carapacians go about their day around you, passing through the park with their eyes politely averted as they pretend not to notice that three celebrities are having lunch in the grass nearby. It’s extra polite of them, because you and Roxy are having a very personal conversation.

JOHN: she looked alright. mostly just tired.  
JOHN: at least she seemed to have enough energy to babble at length about philosophical gibberish, and things about canon and such.  
ROXY: lmao  
ROXY: guess she filled you in on all the ultimate self junk then  
JOHN: the what?  
ROXY: the shit where she starts knowing everything and feelin bad  
JOHN: oh. that’s not the term she used. she just kept describing it as a condition.  
JOHN: you haven’t been feeling anything like that, right?  
ROXY: what getting to know my ultimate self?  
JOHN: yeah.  
ROXY: man ive barely got a hold of my basic ass self  


JOHN: heh.  


JOHN: yeah, she said she was the only one going through this, that she knew of.  


JOHN: poor rose.  


JOHN: at least all that medication seems to be keeping her sort of functional.

Roxy gives you a serious, sidelong glance.

> Remember that whole totally unprovoked spiel Rose gave you about substance abuse.

JOHN: she said it wasn’t like that!  


JOHN: i mean... she said it was under control.  


JOHN: well, what the fuck do i know. the only illicit substance i’ve ever done is lick that STUPID trickster lollipop.  


JOHN: NEVER AGAIN.  
ROXY: yeah w/e  
ROXY: cant say its much my business anymore  
ROXY: rose and i arent as close as we used to be

You nod, sort of knowingly, because you’re thinking about how you hadn’t talked to Rose in ages either. Roxy gives you a quizzical look, but you turn away before she can draw meaning from it.

ROXY: maryams been keeping her real busy since they got hitched  
ROXY: they both vanished down the brooding caverns and that was p much that  
ROXY: only since she got sick and spent more time at home did we start talkin more again  
ROXY: its been great but our conversations have been a lil bit upsetting

And, here it comes. The thing you were trying to avoid thinking about the moment Roxy texted you, about how you haven’t talked to Roxy in ages either. You were having such a nice time ignoring that fact, too. Remembering how little you talk to your friends makes a sour taste coat the back of your mouth, the taste of guilt heavy on your tongue. 

You change the subject. 

JOHN: so, are you and callie still living at the same place i last saw? the one near the tower?

You look towards the bell tower in the distance. It’s a gothic building so tall that it cuts a shadow through the midday sun. It’s an important landmark in the kingdom—the tallest structure for miles around—and  
the only way you can ever navigate your way here flying. Carapace architecture is otherwise identic, a reflection of their functional, collectivist society.

ROXY: yup  


JOHN: that’s cool.  


JOHN: it’s a nice place.  
ROXY: yeah i like it here  
ROXY: ive thought about it but ill probably never wanna live in a different kingdom  
ROXY: still feel most at home around the chess guys  


JOHN: makes sense.  


JOHN: that’s about how i feel about the salamanders.  


JOHN: which... i realize actually makes no fucking sense.  
ROXY: haha  


JOHN: they lead simple lives.  


JOHN: i don’t really care for the chaos of human or troll cities.  
ROXY: neither do we

You watch Roxy smile and reach for Calliope’s hand.

The sight erases some of 

the lingering sickness form Rose’s conversation, like in all of the chaos you’ve been feeling lately with your dreams and such, its good to know that somethings remain a constant.

Calliope breaks through your thoughtful musing. 

CALLIOPE: ahem.  
CALLIOPE: john!  
JOHN: what?  
CALLIOPE: please forgive me if i come across as impatient. bUt if we are finished with the pleasantries, i believe yoU have a choice to make.  
JOHN: huh?  
CALLIOPE: the choice as to whether yoU will go defeat my brother, or stay here.  
CALLIOPE: have yoU decided yet?  
JOHN: there’s a choice??

Calliope is smiling brightly, but Roxy’s face has no expression at all.

JOHN: i was just assuming i had to go.  
JOHN: because if i don’t, then...  
JOHN: a lot of stuff will stop being real. or i mean, stop being canon?  
JOHN: to tell you the truth, i’m a little confused about what will happen if i don’t go.  
JOHN: but it sounds like it will probably be bad!  
CALLIOPE: that may be so.  
CALLIOPE: we are not here to caUtion yoU aboUt the conseqUences of yoUr decision either way.  
CALLIOPE: bUt there is always a choice!  
CALLIOPE: roxy and i merely wished to invite yoU here for a nice hUman picnic, and show oUr sUpport for whichever decision yoU make.  
ROXY: tbh its a relief to finally be doin this  
JOHN: it is?  
ROXY: mm hm  
JOHN: how much have you actually... talked about this? i mean, how many people knew this was going to be a thing?  
ROXY: just us and rose. well dirk too i think  
ROXY: shes been talkin to me about it a bunch  
ROXY: and him too but i dunno how much  
ROXY: hes got like  
ROXY: “thoughts” about all this shit  
ROXY: but whatever thats not important or even remotely surprising  
ROXY: bottom line, rose has been tormenting herself about having to tell you  
ROXY: im just glad she finally said it so she can rest  
ROXY: now its up to you  
CALLIOPE: yes. take all the time yoU need.  
CALLIOPE: again, we aren’t here to inflUence yoU. it’s very important that the decision come from yoUr desire to go throUgh with it, one way or another.  
CALLIOPE: any tampering coUld taint the resUlts.  
JOHN: taint the...  
JOHN: wait, what?  
ROXY: so whatll it be john

A chill runs through you and stays there. You’d never once thought you’d have a choice, and that more than anything is what’s been bothering you the most. 

> Consider the gravitas of this choice.

You try, but you can’t, because you weren’t really prepared for it. You didn’t think it was a choice at all until this very second. You think back to the way Rose looked at you before she went to bed. What has she told Roxy that she didn’t tell you? The chill tightens around your throat and turns into fear.

No, not fear. The feeling is worse than that. It’s regret.

You wasted your time here on this idyllic restoration of Earth. Why did you spend so much time alone? Moping around the house mourning your dead father, who probably would have wanted you to get more enjoyment out of your teen years, as well as your unusually early retirement. There’s so much you could have done. 

You study Roxy’s perfectly stoic face and conclude nothing from it. Her expression reminds you of how Dave used to look, when you first met for real, before years of living with Karkat softened him up. Impenetrable cool.

It’s too late to figure any of this out now. You fucked it up already.

Unless, of course, you choose to stay.

Upon further examination, you realize that Roxy’s stoicism isn’t cold. There’s concern there. She is displaying restraint, keeping quiet while you make up your mind. You’re sweating, you realize. Cold sweat. Even worse than the anime nightmare sweat you woke up soaked in this morning.

ROXY: john u ok?  
JOHN: ...  
ROXY: looked like you were gonna pass out there for a second

Suddenly, Calliope bolts upright.

CALLIOPE: of coUrse! what was i thinking.  
CALLIOPE: this decision is far too important to be made on an empty stomach.  
She fetches the picnic basket, which naturally has been sitting there on the tablecloth since the moment you arrived.  
CALLIOPE: here, before yoU choose which path yoU’re going to take, yoU shoUld decide what yoU’d like to eat!  
CALLIOPE: i have packed a wide variety of provisions. easily enoUgh to satisfy even the most ravenoUs picnic-goer’s appetite.

Calliope produces three dishes from the basket and begins gingerly unwrapping them. The unwrapping is so ginger, in fact, that there’s something almost dramatic about it. Like the opening theme to that boring sci-fi movie with the monolith and the bone-throwing monkeys should be playing as she peels away the cheesecloth.

On one plate is a pile of meat: rare, almost bleeding cuts from animals you can’t identify. The other plate holds a generous heap of colorful, exotic-looking candy. You scoot to the side and peek into the basket to see if there’s anything else. A loaf of bread sits on a neatly folded clot, uncut and golden-brown.

> Contemplate your lunch.

You put a finger to your lips and focus on the food with great intensity. You stop fretting about choices, and heartbreak, and eternity, and Lord English. Your entire world narrows to a single point of light as you are utterly consumed by the overbearing decision about which of these meals to have for lunch.

> MEAT, BREAD, OR CANDY?

The possibilities pinball around your skull. It’s a tough choice. On any other day you might be inclined to simply follow the whims of your cravings, but no clear victor surges to the forefront of your mind.  
Either option offers a tempting means of sustenance. You know the meat will be rich and filling, and if you’re being honest with yourself, you haven’t had the most robust diet as of late. You didn’t even have breakfast. It’s probably a good idea to eat something resembling a real meal for once.

But you’re no stranger to Calliope’s tastes, as far as carnivorous comestibles are concerned. You know every cut on that plate is rare to the core. It’ll fill your mouth to bursting with juice, lie heavy on your stomach for hours to come as your body works to break down all the nutritious protein and fat.

It might be tough to chew. It might be even tougher to swallow.

Maybe the candy is the better choice for a picnic like this. Something that’ll go down easy and fill you with bright energy as you pass the time with your friends. You know you need to just let go sometimes, and stop worrying so much about what other people expect of you. Or even what you expect of you. It’s not a bad thing to enjoy yourself just for the sake of pleasure.

But eat too much and all that sweetness could make you sick.

Then there’s the bread. It sits dense and fluffy in its soft basket, mouthwatering. You know the bread will be filling, wholesome, and enough to sustain you for the rest of the day. Your mouth begins to water at the sight of it. 

Roxy and Calliope glance at each other in confusion as you deliberate over what to eat. You suppose it’s taking you a while to choose, but each dish is appealing enough in certain ways. You don’t want to make a decision you can’t stomach.

Meat, bread, or candy, John. Meat, bread, or candy?

You release your breath when you realize you’ve been holding it. You’re being ridiculous. What’s the sense of fussing over lunch? In the end, it really doesn’t matter. You’ve already made up your mind. 

You reach out and take the loaf of bread.


	2. Breaking Bread

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After careful consideration of multiple theories, late night scheming, and altogether lack of rash thoughtlessness as i put actual effort into reading both routes, I've decided that I actually like both of the routes. Conditionally like them, because the plot is still awful no matter how you look at it and so is the characterization. 
> 
> This is my attempt to provide a better alternative ending, hence the 'bread route'.
> 
> Let's see where this one takes us

Breaking bread

There is something symbolic about ripping into the bread with your bare hands. It’s dense but still fluffy body breaks apart into chunks in your fists, still warm against your palms. You raise the first hunk of fresh bread up to your lips with sudden ravenous hunger, then hesitate, shooting a glance at Roxy and Calliope. 

You look down at the bread in your hands. It’s torn into three perfect, equally-sized chunks. It’s only obvious what to do next.

JOHN: would you like to share this bread with me?  
JOHN: i know there’s other things you brought to eat and that meat and candy look good and all but for some reason I’m like really keen to share this bread with you two

Roxy’s inscrutable face breaks open into a grin that’s blinding enough to see from space. She beams. At her side Calliope drops her hand to squeal in delight. 

ROXY: oh john! wow, ofc we’d love some bread  
CALLIOPE: John, you don’t even need to ask.  
JOHN: Okay, well then,

You hand each of them a hunk of the bread you’ve torn off. Each slice is steaming, warm and fresh. You chow down.

Your friends likewise eat, but that’s to the side. You’re entirely focused on eating this bread, feeling the warm softness of it on your tongue, filling, invigorating you. You taste honey in your mouth. 

As you eat the bread, you feel something shift around you, something intangible. It’s like the air shivered down your spine, a candle spark in your mind. The memory of that black hole in your dreams looms heavy in your mind, as do Rose’s words as you eat your bread and contemplate the life you’ve led here and what life you want to lead. You see the places where the edges don’t quite line up, split apart from too many sleep-filled day’s you’d spent in your house. It fills you with regret. 

But here in the sunlight that gloom can’t touch you, not with your friends at your side and the bread settling in your stomach. Completely sated, you turn back to Calliope and Roxy as something else shifts halfway through your next words, something smaller, subatomic, something only noticed by those who were paying attention to it, shifting into something far more enjoyable as the very fabric of the narrative skews sideways. 

JOHN: well that was great and all but wasn’t there some thing else we were supposed to be talking about? Something important?"

John blinked as he felt that feeling again, a hint of change just strong enough to let him know that something had happened. He blinked again and the feeling was gone. 

“Oh yes, there was,” Calliope said, licking the crumbs from her hand. The Ring of Life glints from her clawed finger. “There’s still a choice for you to make.”

“It’s a very important choice,” Roxy adds. “And I want to remind you that whatever you choose, we will support you.”

For an instant John felt like tearing up but he wasn’t sure why. It felt like something monumental was happening, like the sky itself was bearing down on his with a great big pair of eyes, watching his every move. But it didn’t feel oppressive. It felt like a witness, like here was a moment worth watching.

John looked up at the two friends he’d been neglecting for too long and right then and there resolved to stop being such a fucking stranger to them. He’d been miserable for years, he was slowly realizing. He’d been languishing, exsanguinated of all tonal importance and relativity as he contently wasted away. 

Well, he wasn’t content anymore. It felt like he’d been woken up. 

John set his mouth in a hard line as he made his choice. “I don’t think I’m going to do either of those things,” he said. “I’m not going to go back in time to kill young Caliborn before he becomes Lord English but I’m not going to just sit here and let that dissonance Rose was talking about make this world we live in irrelevant either. There’s got to be some other way to handle this.” John reached behind him and rubbed at the back of his neck, feeling heated by something that was not the sun beating down on him. “I know I have retcon powers, but the fate of this world doesn’t rest solely on my shoulders. This is not just my problem to solve—it’s all of ours. If Rose says that we have to fix cannon then I don’t disagree with her, but I know killing Caliborn isn’t the answer.” For one, Caliborn would have been a teenager. That would be the murder of a minor, and John just couldn’t let that fact sit inside him with anything akin to peace. All he felt was disgust. 

Roxy and Calliope shared a Look, the kind of look only possible between two souls who understand each other completely. The seven years they’d spend living together really showed in times like this, when they didn’t need words to know what the other thought. 

Roxy was the first to speak. “Are you sure, John?” She fretted, “If Rose thought his was a good idea…”

“I’m not saying she’s wrong,” John answered, struggling to explain. “I’m not sure why, but I’m sure that plan she gave me would work exactly as intended, but I feel like that’s a bad thing, like it’s not the only option that we can consider.”

Calliope seemed surprised. “And you think that its possible to avoid a confrontation with my brother?”

“I don’t know,” John admitted. “I don’t know if he can be avoided or not, but I know that Rose’s assault isn’t the right answer.” The letter from her that he’d folded in his pocket burned, but he ignored it.

This seemed a bit rich coming from guy that hadn’t spoken to either of them in months, but John was dead serious. He didn’t know why he felt this way but he did, and for the first time in a long time he was sure of his feelings. 

Calliope seemed unsure. “Then what will you do?”

In the grand totality of things, John had no idea, but he did know this. 

It was time to talk to his friends.  
…

That was easier said than done when all of his friends had given up on his company years ago. Being faced with the utter truth of his own social ineptitude was strangely surreal to John. All of his friends had spent the last seven years building their own lives here on Earth C, and now John had to find a way to squirm back into social relevance without seeming like a pathetic loser who came crawling back. 

John started with Rose, since they’d already spoken. She seemed surprised but agreed to hold a meeting at her place for everyone that John could get to attend. Calliope and Roxy were already on his side, that was three down. 

The rest were not so easy. 

Kanaya spent most of her time down in the brooding caverns overseeing the new mother grub and she was loathe to leave her work so close to the hatching season, but Rose persuaded her.

Then came Jade and Davepeta, except that no one really knew where that pair was currently hiding, vicious globe-trotters that they were. 

John had to resort to Pestering them, just like old times. Just seeing the familiar screen on his phone gave him nostalgia as he idly texted and floated back in the direction of his house, high in the sky, at one with the fluffy clouds that drifted past. 

ectoBiologist (EB) began Pestering gardenGnostic (GG) and arsenicGodhead (AG)!

EB: hey guys.  
EB: i know it’s been a while since we’ve spoken about any thing important.  
EB: or spoken at all.  
EB: and i really have no idea where either of you are in the world right now, but would you mind popping back to rose’s apartment for a quick meeting? rose and i have been having world ending apocalyptic dreams/visions that she says are sburb related so not to freak either of you out but i think you both need to be present when we discuss things.  
EB: I know jade can jump around the universe even now that the green sun’s gone with her space powers  
EB: and btw i also know about the green sun being gone.  
EB: and i just really want you both back! i feel like it’s been ages since we’ve hung out or seen each other.  
EB: i know you probably won’t answer for a few hours due to time zone stuff but i want you both to know that i’m sorry that it took me this long to reach out to you.  
EB: i’ll try to do better in the future.  
AG:<< this is some sicknasty heartfelt stuff bro  
AG: << go on, lay it on thick B)  
AG: << its been an awful long while since i’ve heard some bonafide egbert feels man. Its pawsitivly purrfect 

The odd, unique blend of text styles made John smile, his heat feeling lighter than it had in ages, right before Jade answered him.

GG: sburb?  
GG: dreams?  
GG: WHY WAS I NOT INFORMED OF THIS SOONER? AND WHO TOLD YOU ABOUT THE GREEN SUN?  
GG: Its really upsetting to me that it’s gone forever! It always made me feel that much closer to bec  
GG: oh and hi davepeta! how are you doing?  
AG: << fucking fantastic jade  
EB: rose told me  
EB: i think she had a vision of its destruction  
EB: I didn’t kno any of this until today if that makes you feel better  
GG: today?  
GG: Oh John—that reminds me!  
GG: Happy birthday!!!!!!  
AG:<< yeah man congrats on the big 23  
AG:<< not like that’s anything to really celebrate since we’re all immortal bastards now but congrats

John’s throat felt tight.

EB: yeah its not that big a deal. Id honestly forgotten it in the wake of all this dream shit  
EB: will you both be at the meeting?

There was only a single heartbeat’s worth of pause.

GG: Of course! I can jump us both back at any time, given that davepeta tells me where they are :)  
GG: when should we be there?  
EB: tomorrow, noon time in new cantown. rose’s apartment.  
AG: << dog we will be so over this meeting stichk  
AG:<< i actually like seriously can’t wait to see you guys again. it’s been purrever since we’ve all met up  
EB: I know  
EB: But I giess I’ll see you guys tomorrow?  
GG: Tomorrow for sure!  
GG: Bye John! Happy Birthday!  
AG:<< Yeah happy b-day  
EB: thanks guys

ectoBiologist (EB) had become an Idle chum!

For a second John felt bad about signing out so abruptly, but there was a growing lump in his throat that to hurt to breathe around. He’d drifted so high that looking down was like gazing at a patchwork blanket of farmland, woods, and industrial zones. To the far right the Carapace Kingdom shone in neat black and white squares, and to the for horizon the gray of the troll Kingdom stood out like a sore thumb. It reminded him of who he had to text next.

John rang up Pesterchum again, keying in the Chumhandles of the Troll Kingdom’s two monarchs.

ectoBiologist (EB) began Pestering turntechGodhead (TG) and carcinoGeneticist (CG)!

EB: hey guys, what’s up?

This time the reply was instantaneous, which was to be expected because Dave was never parted from his phone. The eagerness was still a little disconcerting though.

TG: john, hey  
TG: long time no horribly obtuse one-sided conversation  
TG: wait shit no fuck that sounded bad  
TG: oh hell  
TG: forget i said that  
TG: man you got me all fucked up john like i see that bright blue on my phone and my hands get the jitters as my verbal filer flies right into the fucking sun like a piece of garbage. see you never, you fuckin trash you  
TG: not that youre the trash in this scenario john id never say that really

John bit his lip as red words began to fill his screen. For a brief, shining instant it was like not time at all had passed between them and this was just another time they shot the shit together. 

TG: and i know its been a while since weve spoken but man am i glad to hear from you  
TG: what the fuck is up my main man?

John paused before just spitting out the truth. he always could be honest with Dave about things he couldn’t with anyone else. 

EB: rose is having sburb visions about the end of the world and wants me to go back into cannon to kill lord english to validate our own existence otherwise something terrible will happen, and i’ve been dreaming in anime again about some apocalyptic event on the horizon and im supposed to make this huge choice about it today except that i don’t really like either option so i’ve called for a meeting at rose’s apartment tomorrow to discuss the details as a group.  
EB: and both you and karkat should be there, you know, as players and all  
EB: I’m trying to gather everyone up together but its kinda like herding cats  
TG: oh shit really?  
TG: that sucks balls man  
TG: but why now? its been seven years since we left the game behind  
EB: i don’t know the answer to that. maybe rose does if you’ll ask her but she hasn’t been feeling the best lately.  
TG: who else have you talked to about this?  
EB: just you, roxy, calliope, rose, kanaya, jade, davepeta, and i guess karkat though i don’t think he’s read any of this yet  
TG: guess again man  
CG: GUESS AGAIN JOHN!  
CG: FUCK.  
CG: DAVE, YOU SPOILED MY DRAMATIC ENTRANCE.  
TG: sorry babe  
CG: SO WHAT I’VE PUT TOGETHER FROM READING THIS DRIVEL IS THAT SBURBS TRYING TO FUCK US IN THE ASS AGAIN.  
CG: WELL I’M WITH YOU, JOHN. I’M SICK OF THIS BULLSHIT! NO CHOICES, NO END OF THE FUCKING WORLD, NO DREAM VISIONS OF FUCKING LORD ENGLISH OF ALL MONSTERS TO HAVE NIGHTTERRORS OF! WE WON OUR PEACE. SBURB HAD ITS FUCKING CHANCE AN DWE BEAT IT. NOW IT HAS TO ELAVE US THE FUCK ALONE.  
CG: YOU SAID YOU HAD A CHOICE TO MAKE?  
EB: rose said that the fate of the world rested on my shoulders and that it was my destiny to choose  
CG: WELL, FUCK THAT! FUCK IT HARD! WHAT THE FUCK MADE YOU SO SUPER SPECIAL? IS IT YOUR BUCK TEETH? YOU LACK OF PERSONAL SURVIVAL INSTINCTS?  
CG: FOR ONCE YOU RUBBED YOUR TWO PANCELLS TOGETHER AND FIGURED OUT THAT MAYBE CALLING IN THE REST OF US WAS A GOOD FUCKING IDEA, YOU KNOW, BECAUSE THIS CONCERNS ALL OF US AND NOT JUST YOU.  
EB: I know, so will you two be there?  
TG: absolutely  
CG: YOU COULDN’T EVEN KEEP MY CORPSE AWAY FROM THIS MEETING.  
EB: great! i look forward to seeing both of you. it’s been a while, hasn’t it?  
CG: AND WHOSE FAULT IS THAT, I WONDER?  
TG: karkat no  
CG: FINE, BUT ONLY BECAUSE YOU ASKED, DAVE.  
TG: i can get ahold of the other two sprites for you so dont worry about them. theyll be there  
EB: thank you  
EB: I guess I’ll go? I’ve still got to talk to jane, jake, and dirk. plus one more person.  
TG: yeah, good luck with that  
TG: bye john  
EB: bye dave  
CG: I’LL SEE YOU LATER, EGBERT. I DON’T ENVY YOU TRYING TO GATHER THE REST OF THEM TOGETHER LIKE THIS. GOOD LUCK. 

ectoBiologist (EB) has become an Idle chum!

John looked up from his phone, somewhat sad that the conversation was over. Dave had been his best friend once. Where did that leave them now, on the other side of a years-long divide?

Karkat had been exactly right to jab at him. This was John’s fault. 

Now it was up to him to fix it. 

John texted Jane next but got no reply, so he moved onto Jake. 

EB: jake? are you there or are you busy with something?  
GT: I’m never quite busy enough to ignore a buddy, John!  
GT: What’s the low down?  
EB: We’re having a get together at rose’s tomorrow to talk about some important things that have come up recently. i’m trying to get ahold of everyone but i can’t seem to get jane to answer me.  
GT: Did you pester her? She’s kinda quit the old Pesterchum for some newfangled crockercorp smaggas—you’ll have to just call the company to get ahold of her.  
EB: oh really? why’d she do that?  
GT: I think it makes her feel more professional and distant from the game. Pesterchum had a lot of old memories wrapped up around it and I can see her not wanting that info shoved down her face every time she wanted to talk to one of us.  
GT: I’m actually busy with a show tomorrow with Dirk, but I’ll be sure to be there anyway!  
GT: I’ll make sure to drag Dirk along with me too, don’t you worry about that. I’ll have everything right as rain for this meeting. Will everyone else be there?  
EB: i’m planning on having everyone. even arquius will be there.  
GT: So you managed to get ahold of Terezi!?! How the dickens did you do that?  
EB: … no. after jane she’s the last one to hop aboard this bandwagon.  
GT: Yikkers. That’ll be no easy task. No one’s heard from her in a long while.  
EB: Well, no one had heard from me in about the same time until today.  
GT: By jolly you’re right. It’s been forever since we’ve had a nice chat like this.  
EB: yeah.

This was starting to feel a little repetitive, but he deserved it. So what if he had to listen to how much each of his friends missed talking to him so that the guilt nearly choked him?

EB: any way, thank you a lot! i’ll look forward to seeing you tomorrow.  
GT: No problem mate.

ectoBiologist (EB) has become an Idle chum!

John hovered over in the sky over his house for a minute before slowly descending towards the roof. He was back at the Salamander Village. For the first time in a lonf time, the thought struck him out of the blue.  
This wasn;t his home. It’d never been his home. 

John put feet to roof and stood there, before he sighed and went back inside through the hatch he’d installed years ago to accommodate his multiple flying friends. 

The house felt bare and empty after a morning spent full of words, so he looked up the number to CrockerCorp’s main office and dialed it. 

A polite voice answered him. “Hello! You’ve reached the main office of CrockerCorp! Please listen closely and select the appropriate number from our list of call options. Press one for media and press, two for product sales, three for customer service, four for legality issues, and five to speak to a representative.”

John pressed five.

“Please hold,” That cheerfully fake voice spoke again, and then smooth jazz began playing in his ear. How hard could it be to get a hold of Jane? 

The minutes drug past in slow increments, each one longer than the last. 

John sighed and switched the call to speaker phone as he drifted around his empty kitchen. The notes followed him, a haunting refrain that echoed in the stillness that he’d never noticed before. He blinked, his eyes swimming as the black and white checkerboard tiles of his kitchen melted together to resemble the Battlefield on Skaia and he looked away, breathing hard. 

What was wrong with him?

At last the music stopped and a different voice spoke through the phone, this one for real. 

“Hello!” the helper said, still falsely cheery. “How may I help you?”

“Oh, hi,” John, said, zipping back over to the counter where he’d left his phone lying. “I’d like to speak to Jane, please.”

A baffled laugh barked through the receiver. “The Boss cannot be reached by phone, silly! The Maid of Life is a very busy individual. You can’t expect to simply ring up and talk to a god.”

“Actually, I do,” John said, his temper flaring. “This is the Heir speaking, and I’d like to talk to my friend.”

Silence. Utter silence, then, quietly, “I’ll see what I can do,” the voice squeaked out too fast, rushed, and John was on hold again. The same jazzy piano kept playing in the background. 

John went to sigh again and then stopped himself. He felt like all he’d done all day was sigh, sigh and mope around about how terrible he’d let relations with his friends become. This time, while the call was being transferred further and further up the line of command, John took the effort to wash the dishes he’d left piled in the sink. He then dried them and stacked them away, throwing open the blinds to let the late afternoon sunlight pour in. 

It still smelled musty in here, so John closed his eyes and called the Breeze to him. Even after all these years the magic was still effortless as John pulled in fresh air through the open widow and washed out all of the stale air that had been sitting inside stagnating. The curtains ruffled in the crisp breeze as fingers of wind trailed through John’s dark hair. A second later the wind died back down, and when John breathed in he smelled the flowers that his neighbors had been growing in their front garden. Much better.

There was a beep from the phone. The voice that answered was clearly not Jane’s or human. Troll, probably. Even now they all still had that gravely growl embedded deep in their voices, a strange, alien lilt left over from the Alternian language they’d evolved to speak. “Is this a prank?”

“Nope,” John said, deadly serious. “I want to speak with Jane.”

“How can I be sure that you’re really the great John?” the troll asked him suspiciously, and John did sigh this time at the mention of “the great”.

“I don’t know?” John answered, still frustrated. “I just am, okay?”

“I’m sorry, but there’s simply no precedent for this,” the troll told him. “I’m going to need some proof.”

“What do you want?” John asked, irritated. What was there that he could do over the phone anyway? 

“Say something in Alternian,” the troll asked. “You’re clearly a human, and normal humans can’t speak that language even when they bother learning it.”

“Fine,” John said, pleasantly surprised as he dredged up his Gift of Gab. “I want to speak to Jane” he said in Alternian. The words hurt his throat on the way out, but they were in passable Alternian. 

There was a moment of consideration from the troll on the other end of the phone. “Fine,” they said. “You’re the real Heir. I’ll see that you’re transferred directly to the Maid.”

“Thank you,” John said, exasperated. 

It took another five minutes of that agonizing jazz music before there was a click and a familiar voice spoke up. “John?”

“Jane!” John answered cheerfully, disguising his relief. 

“Oh, it is you,” Jane said, and she didn’t sound surprised or happy, just cool. Collected. Distant. “Why did you call?”

“Well, Jake told me that you don’t use Pesterchum much anymore and I needed to speak with you.”

“About what?” Jane asked. 

“Uh,” John said, trying to gather his thoughts. 

Jane let out a noise of frustration. “John please. I’m very busy right now so hurry it along, thank you.”

“I need you to come to Rose’s apartment tomorrow,” John said, blurting out the truth. “We’re all getting together to discuss something that’s come up and you need to be there to hear it.”

“I need to what?” Jane said, sounded scandalized. 

“See, the world might be ending soon, or at least becoming irrelevant according to Rose’s visions, and there’s this thing with Lord English—”

“John, stop,” Jane commanded, and John shut his mouth. “Lord English? End of the world?”

“Something like that,” John admitted. “I don’t really know the details yet.”

“But you say Rose does?”

“I think she knows more than she’s letting on,” John said. “Like always.”

“Is this SBURB-related?”

“Yes.”

“Dear god,” Jane sighed. “I thought we were done with all that.”

“Me too,” John said, leaning against his countertop as he cradled the phone close to his chest. “I wish that it was over.”

“Do you have any idea what Rose means?” Jane asked, sounding fearful. 

“Not really, not yet,” John answered. “Ut at the meeting tomorrow we should find out the whole story.”

“I guess I have to be there then,” Jane said, distracted. “I’ll have to cancel all of my meetings, the graphic design sessions for the new product launch, the board of trustees meetings… are you sure that my presence is required? I’m very busy at the moment and I’d rather not get tied up in anymore game nonsense for the rest of my hopefully very long life.”

“Just come for tomorrow,” John asked. “You can make up your mind after that.”

There was silence from the phone, then, softly. “Okay.” Jane took a deep breath. “I’ll be there. One day. You get one day, John, just becasue it's you that's aksing.”

There was a bitter taste in his mouth. “Thank you,” John said, then hung up.  
…

He waited until later that night to contact Terezi.

Or, try to contact her, that was. Terezi had been gone for years, off on her mad-goose chase for a person John would rather not see ever again. 

Bu that was beside the point. Now he had to focus on what needed to happen.

John pulled up Pesterchum and shot her a message. 

ectoBiologist (EB) began Pestering gallowsCallibrator (GC) at time unknown!

EB: hey. i know it’s been years but do you have a moment?  
EB: i want you to come back to earth c, just for a day. i’m not asking you to stop looking for her or anything—just come back for a visit. i know its short notice but everyone is meeting up tomorrow to discuss some shit that’s happening about lord english and i think that you need to know what’s going on.  
EB: you know, since you’re rattling around in the depths of space still.  
EB: please come back terezi. just for a day.

He never received an answer. Terezi’s icon stayed dull gray, inactive, and as the sun fell so did John’s good mood. The shadows seemed to press in on him, crawling across the walls with long, draping fingers of blackness that reminded him too much of the black hole of his dreams to feel like sleeping ever again.

Tomorrow, he thought, closing his eyes and then opening them again when he couldn’t stand the blackness he saw. He just had to make it till tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hate all my chapter two's ever but especially this one. oh well. now we can get to the fun stuff >:)


	3. All I Know are Bread Puns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go, another chapter awaits. Let's see where this thing is going :)

Chapter three  
All I Know are Bread Puns

It was tomorrow, and John didn’t sleep that night out of fear of anime black holes and irascible Lords of Time. He spent the night staring at the ceiling, waiting for the sun to rise. 

Morning came softly and there were still hours to go before the meeting began, and that was when the stress began to creep in, in-between the time when John splurged on himself and whipped up some pancakes, up unusually early for him and indulging in a proper breakfast for once. 

It was technically Saturday, and the salamanders went through their routine of getting ready for the business day even though all the offices would be closed, sticking to their old routine with a complacent fervor even as the rest of them suited up to go farm the fields, ensuring that this month’s crop of delicious mushrooms made it to the production lines. 

John didn’t know why, but for the first time he sight filled him with stress. Such simple lives they led. Would they even understand the stresses their god was going through? John munched thoughtfully on his pancakes and watched them go out the window of his small kitchen. One of them blew a remarkably large spit bubble that ascended to the clouds in a lazy drift, truly spectacular. 

John looked away. The salamanders were _his_ responsibility. It was up to him to make sure that they could continue to lead these simple, stress-free lives that they had chosen for themselves. They had the freedom to choose to do anything, and this was what made them happy.

John looked around his empty kitchen. He was just as stuck to his old routine as they were. Was _this_ what made him happy?

The unexpected made him reevaluate his entire life after the game. He didn’t like the conclusions he came to. 

No, John decided. No it wasn’t. All of the universe to explore and all he’d done for the past seven years was stay locked inside his house. Even now the walls were pressing in on him. How had he even managed to stay inside for so long! It had only been a few hours and the stillness was already driving him crazy. 

His phone buzzed, and to his utter delight John saw that Dave had texted him. 

TG: sup  
TG: i hope this isnt weird or anything  
EB: you hope what isn’t weird?  
TG: idk  
TG: texting you i guess  
EB: why would that be weird?  
TG: idk but like its been years since weve spoke. i can tell you the exact date and time that we last texted like this  
EB: dude so can i. its displayed right there in pesterchum  
TG: ok you know what screw you egbert  
TG: my mystical time powers let me know shit like that ill have you know  
EB: hehehehe i don’t need time powers when i have technology.  
TG: technology is a blessing man

There was a moment of silence. John felt the conversation dying and jumped to prevent that. 

EB: did karkat tell you to text me?  
TG: what no 

John winced, unsure why he’d chosen the exact worst thing to say. Ending the conversation now would be mercy, when

TG: well ok maybe he did  
TG: just a little

John snorted with relief, his thumbs flying across his screen. 

EB: i knew it  
TG: i probably would have texted you anyway tbh because like the exact length of time that went unspoken between us is exactly equal to how much catching up we need to do  
TG: we havnt talked in ages  
TG: how are you doing? what have you been up to?  
EB: stuff  
EB: and things  
EB: mainly i’ve been ruling over the consorts. i live in the salamander village now. its pretty chill here most of the time. i bet its nothing like running the troll kingdoms.  
TG: youre right though karkat does most of the actual leading work between us. hes a natural. the trolls actually listen to him. the crime rate has more than halved just this year. if this trend keeps up well be as crime-free as the carapacians soon  
EB: was crime a problem before?  
TG: eh not really  
TG: like the biggest issue was forcing the equality for all rule due to as a species trolls having long memories but karkat sorted that shit right out  
TG: broke up the highblood cabals and busted up all the lowblood gangs like childs play as he rooted out biases with the skillful determination of a truffle pig hunting mushrooms  
TG: but anyway are you ready for the meeting today?  
John considered the question carefully.  
EB: yes.  
EB: even if nothing gets decided, it’ll be fun to have a chance to see and talk to everyone again just like old times, don’t you think?  
TG: …  
TG: john i dont really know how to say this but weve all sorta kept in touch with each other. like when jades not off doing whatever it is she does she crashes on our couch. we have lunch with rose and kanaya twice a week at least and i kept in contact with dirk and send shitty memes to roxy and bother jane about the state of the human economy during her lunch break  
TG: for most of us this meeting wont be some miracle get together and as your friend you need to understand that  
TG: its not just me either. everyone held onto each other. you were the only one that drifted apart  
TG: and fuck john, i tried to not let it happen. i sent you text after text and flew over to your house twice a day to knock on your door but you never let me in and you never texted me back  
TG: what else was i supposed to do?  
TG: karkat thought that you just needed space or needed a break or some shit and i was ok with that but then a year passed and nothing had changed, and then it was three years, and now here we fuckin are and i cant tell you how grateful i am to be sitting here in my shitty apartment kitchen texting you while karkat reads everything over my shoulder because hes a nosey bastard but i love him  
TG: karkat says hi btw

John blinked at his screen, feeling his eyes water. 

He remembered Dave at his door, knocking to be let in. He remembered all of the unanswered texts. He remembered even the part about wanting time and space to deal with what had happened. He remembered those early days, full of lost apathy. What had he _done?_

Everyone. Everyone had tried to stay in touch with him and John had shoved them away. He was fucking lucky that Dave was here texting him now.

TG: john?  
TG: you still there?

John forced his numb fingers to move.

EB: yeah.  
EB: i’ll see you later, okay?  
TG: sure  
TG: you sure youll be there?  
EB: i will be  
TG: ok  
TG: ill see you then  
TG: or future me will come back to this exact second to kick your ass

John smiled at the joke, actually smiled. The expression felt nice on his face. When had he last smiled?

His phone screen went dark from inactivity, and John left the kitchen to go and find something presentable to wear to the meeting.  
…

He flew over to the house Rose and Kanaya shared again he made sure he would be early enough to arrive before everyone else. He knocked on the door and Kanaya opened it. “My wife is unwell,” she said at once, staring down at him with her jade eyes. “I do hope you have a good reason for choosing to hold this meeting with Rose as she is.”

“Has she gotten worse?” John asked, worried. 

“No, but she has not gotten better,” Kanaya said, ushering him inside. “And the added stress of throwing and hostessing a house party cannot be good for her health.”

Rose was recumbent on the sofa when John came in. She rose in stages to meet him, her smile wide but forced. “Hello again,” she greeted him. “I will say that I’m intrigued to know what alternative you’ve come up with. My plan was well thought out, strategic, and overall—necessary for the continuation of our universe.”

“But it hinged on the assassination of a teenager,” John pointed out cheekily. 

Kanaya frowned, looking stern. “What’s this about an assassination?”

“Caliborn,” John explained. “But that’s a long story. We can wait to tell it when everyone else arrives.”

Kanaya’s slim eyebrows rose but she said nothing else. 

There came a second knock on the door and Kanaya left to go open it in a swish of skirts. 

Rose’s smile fell off her face, revealing a weary expression. “Are you ready for this?” She asked. 

“I have to be,” John answered, and then Kanaya was back. With her was Jane, early as always in a blue power suit. There was a string of pearls clasped around her neck and black kitten heels added an inch to her height. 

“John,” Jane smiled at him, but there was a tightness to the expression that didn’t reach her eyes. “It’s good to see you.”

John felt awkward as he greeted her likewise, like he was simply reciting the lines to a TV show. “It’s nice to see you too.”

Jane stepped forward to hug him and John returned the embrace. Rose remained on the couch. 

Jane looked at Rose. “John told me this was some SBURB thing?”

“Wait just a moment,” Rose answered, squinting like her vision was bothering her. “Jade and Davepeta will be here shortly, as in, ETA two seconds.”

John went to say something else but was cut off by a burst of green fire that lit up the center of the room. Wide neon-green and orange wings filled the space as Davepeta flapped madly to regain their balance as Jade dumped the both of them directly into the middle of Rose and Kanaya’s living room. 

John leaned back to neatly avoid the wing that would have upper-cut him. Davepata looked woozy from the special jump as they folded their wings back down, looking pissed until they caught sight of John. “John!” was all the warning John received before the sprite threw themselves forward.

It was a very different kind of hug than the polite one Jane had given him—this was a full-body embrace. John tried to hug them back but he wasn’t sure what to do with his arms with the wings so he ended up just standing there as the sprite embraced him. Besides, he didn’t really know Davepeta all that well. He knew Davesprite, but not this new amalgamation that wore parts of the old face he remembered. 

That smile was new, partly Dave’s shy grin, half something that showed more teeth than should have been allowed, something more trollish. 

“Hi,” John said to them, smiling back uncertainly. They absolutely beamed in response. 

Then Jade was there, and seeing his ecto-sister was like a balm of fresh cool water amid the heated chaos that John was feeling on the inside. “Jade!” He called out happily. 

Jade couldn’t hold back her grin as she also hugged him, and this time John returned the hug full-force. His sister had grown, but so had he. This somehow left them exactly the same height. Behind her glasses Jade’s green eyes were sparkling. 

“Jade,” John said, and suddenly things didn’t seem so bad. His ecto-sister was here. 

“John,” Jade greeted him back, and she let go of him to scowl at Davepeta. “You nearly hit him with your wings!”

“Well you didn’t give me any warning before warping us here,” they answered, picking at their claws. “I lost my balance for a second before the sweet cat-like reflexes kicked in.”

Jade stuck out her tongue at them before turning back to her brother. “John, how have you been?”

“I’m getting better,” John answered, not even knowing what he was getting better from but knowing that it was true all the same. 

Jade’s smile turned blinding.

Kanaya left again to herald in the next guests, and Jake appeared with her when she returned, a pink-purple sprite at his side that John barely remembered existed. Next was Dirk, looking worn out and pursued by ARquius, who even now seemed keen on bothering him. 

The small room was beginning to feel rather crowded, and that was before Roxy and Calliope showed up arm-in-arm. John ended up squished in the corner, watching them interact with each other as he lost track of who all was here. 

Rose managed to draw herself up to a seated position to free up space on the sofa, and Jane took a seat beside her, looking concerned. “You should have consulted me,” Jane gently scolded, reaching for Rose’s hand. 

“I fear my condition is not one that you can mollify,” Rose answered tiredly. “These headaches… they’re simplify debilitating.”

“And what else am I good for if not this?” Jane reached out and took Roses hand, and instantly Rose’s tense expression relaxed. 

“Oh!” She said, leaning back. “That feels much better.”

“Rose,” Jane said, “Even if I can’t help, you know I can take the pain away. Why didn’t you call me sooner?”

Kanaya was looking at Jane with a thankful expression, her hand drifting down to touch her wife’s shoulder. 

John was drug out of the corner by Jake, who shook his hands, both of them, twice. His face was exuberant. “John, mate, where have you bloody been?”

“Around,” John answered evasively, and then Dave and Karkat were there to rescue him.

“You’re late,” Rose told her brother. 

“I’m never late,” Dave answered, straight-faced as Karkat sighed from his side. 

“It’s too fucking crowded in here,” Karkat complained, looking miffed at the amount of people crammed into Rose’s living room. “Who’s brilliant idea was this?”

“Mine,” John answered, leaving Jake behind to step forward. Every person in the room turned to look at him. Jesus that was a lot of eyes. John felt hot underneath his collar from stress. “Uh, hi guys,” he said, feeling the awkwardness suffocating him. “It’s me.”

“John,” Rose said, sparing him further embarrassment. “I think it would be best to explain why you called this meeting.”

“Please,” Jane added, sitting neatly beside Rose and Roxy. 

“Is everyone here?” Jake asked, looking around at the crowd.

“Everyone but Terezi,” Karkat said, sighing. 

John checked his phone but fund that the icon was still blank and gray. No Terezi then. He’d have to do this without her.

“Okay,” John said, gathering his thoughts as he swallowed thickly. “Me and Rose have both been having visions of the end of the world, specifically a supermassive black hole that eats the entire universe. Rose says its because this universe we’ve created is somehow invalid because we never defeated the final boss in the game. Lord English technically still exists, and as long as he does our universe, and with it this planet, can’t continue.”

Utter silence met his words. The room full of eyes blinked at him.

“Are you sure?” Jake asked, looking worried. 

“I’m very sure,” Rose answered. “Jade?”

Jade nodded sadly. “The green sun is gone,” she announced. “It was swallowed by this black hole thingy, and unless we stop it it’ll soon spread to engulf the entire universe. The entire frog is in danger of being eaten.”

Jane looked dismayed. Roxy looked like she’d guessed this on her own. Karkat’s face was grim. 

“Can we stop it?” Dirk asked, standing in the corner of the room, leaning back with one shoulder against the wall. “Is it something that can be stopped?”

“Yes,” Rose said tiredly. “here’s a clear way to victory—John uses his retcon abilities to reenter cannon, go back into the game and the old universe we left behind, and defeats Lord English in battle.” She shuffled through the cushions piled around her, her voice soft. “I made a map and a list, there was a well thought out battle plan for him to follow.”

“But,” John said, “You left out two important facts, Rose. One, that I would have to go and fight him alone, and two, that I would be targeting Caliborn as a teenager. That just doesn’t sit right with me.”

“Against a fully grown and powered up Lord English, alone you’d have no chance,” Rose argued. “Killing him before he becomes Lord English is the clear way to proceed.”

“But that’s evil,” Jon argued. “It is and you know it. That’s murder.”

“It’s necessary,” Rose said, stressing the word. “His life for all of ours.”

“It’s unfair,” John argued. 

“When was SBURB ever fair?” Rose shot back, venom in her voice. “We all know how cruel the game was. Is. Do you really find my plan that much worse than everything else that we did to survive?”

That was a low blow. John hissed in his breath through his teeth, obstinate in his decision. “That can’t be our only option,” he argued back. “Either I go back and kill him or I do nothing and let this universe become irrelevant. Well, I don’t like either of those options!” John all but yelled, looking at Calliope and Roxy. “You said I had a choice, and I’ve made up my mind. I’m not going to do either of those things. This isn’t some magical bullshit thing that somehow equates my choices over the rights of everyone else. Something needs to be done, I’m not arguing that it doesn’t, but we’re in this mess together. Whatever happens next, happens to us all.”

“And if you’re wrong?” Rose demanded. 

“We did a lot of bad things to survive in the game,” John said, his face steady. “I’m not saying we didn’t, but we’re not kids anymore. Shouldn’t we know better by now? Can’t we make better decisions this time? Isn’t that what growing up is all about?” John ended up out of breath as he looked over the silent crowd. 

Then all hell broke loose, everyone talking all at once. 

“Wow,” Dave said, his face inscrutable behind his shades. “John, you never told me you spent all of that time locked up in your house becoming a fuckin’ philosopher.”

“Well said,” Roxy told him, dipping her chin as she beamed at him.

“I don’t think killing Caliborn is going to stop a black hole,” Jade said, gnawing at her lower lip with her ears lowered. 

“If it’s in the game, let it rot there,” Jane said, decisive. “I don’t want anything to do with that mess ever again.”

“Wait,” Rose said, sighing like it pained her. “Let him finish. I want to hear what idea he’s come up with. John?” She said, turned to face him. “How exactly do you propose a solution to all or woes?”

“Uh,” John admitted, “I was thinking, and—”

“A dangerous pastime,” Davepeta joked. Jade elbowed them in the ribs for the quip. 

“And I thought that there’s a lot of things that we left undone in the game,” John finished. “It’s not just killing Lord English that we loopholed around or flat out decided not to do. We broke the rules long before we skipped the final battle. Maybe if we go back and right some of those wrongs, SBURB’ll validate us and validate our victory without having to assassinate a teenager.”

“Things like?” Rose asked sarcastically.

John looked at her, his blue eyes hard. “You never learned to play the rain,” he reminded her. “The ultimate goal for your entire planet—left undone.”

Rose’s face tightened at the mention of LOLAR. 

“I’m betting that the game counts that as a failure,” John said. “Right now, I’m betting we have more failures due to our rule-breaking than we have victories. That’s got to be a big part of the reason this universe isn’t seen as valid…” John trailed off, uncertain of what to say next. “Maybe if we right a few of those wrongs, it’ll be enough to fix the problem without resorting to further violence.”

“I’m all for not resorting to violence,” Dave said, raising his voice. “I’m with John on this one. If there’s a chance we can do this without throwing John alone in battle against Lord English, why not give it a try?”

“Absolutely not,” Jane spoke up, scandalized. “I say we do nothing. There’s no proof that continuing to live in an invalidated universe is particularly bad, is there? I mean, it’s been seven years and things look like they are going great.”

“It’ll start out small,” Rose said, her voice cutting through the room. “Maybe the changes won’t be apparent for years. Maybe even decades, but this isn’t a sustainable world, not yet. Eventually the problems will start cropping up.”

“Like?” Jane prodded. 

“I’m not sure,” Rose admitted. “Maybe dropping fertility rates nosedive the four kingdom’s populations, maybe it’ll be political strife, a plague, who knows? For all that we’re immortal, forever is a long time to live in a place that’s not meant to be permanent.”

“So we have to do something,” John stated, pushing the room to make up its mind. “Just, let’s try my way first. What do we have to lose?”

Rose stared at him and there was a pleased, proud glimmer in her eye. “What do we have indeed,” she said mysteriously. “My visions revealed to me that if you decided to go and fight Lord English according to my plan, then he would in fact be defeated, but I was unable to See how or why. I’m lacking the details and it’s a bit disconcerting. Maybe your way will be the better choice.”

“Does anyone want to hear my thoughts on the subject?” Dirk said. “I’m having a lot of them right now.”

“You and your thoughts,” ARquius said teasingly, red light reflecting off the pointed shades he wore. “You’re always so full of shit, Dirk.”

“Shut up,” Dirk said, but he laughed through it good naturedly. “I still regret making you.”

“I have no master,” Arquius said, grinning as he flexed his muscles. “I’m as free as a wild stallion.”

“Shut it you two,” Davepeta said, flapping at the other sprite with a fond look. “John’s still talking.”

“That’s right,” John said, regaining control of the room. “So, who else wants to give it a try?”

The Mayor would have been proud as Democracy reigned once again as everyone raised their hands in a vote. The winner was clearly John, though not everyone voted for him, such as Jane, and surprisingly, Jake. rose refrained from voted, and Kanaya deliberated for a long moment before throwing in her lot with John. 

“Okay,” John said, feeling his heart pound through him. He’d won. Now it was time for the hard part—actually finding a way to accomplish his goals. “Then let’s do this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! What a lot of characters to have talking all at once. I hope everything's alright and written in a coherent way. 
> 
> anyway, what do you guys think of the premise? Is there anything specific you want to see addressed? There's a lot of plot lines i'm working with so have patience-- we'll get there eventually.


	4. Loaves of Bread

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be the shortest chapter. I just had to break up what comes next for length reasons.

Loaves of grass 

John clutched the new list to his chest. This wasn’t Rose’s original plan. This was the new plan, his plan. The better plan. 

The unfinished plan.

“Okay,” John said, his tongue between his teeth as he carefully wrote down everything that they might need to accomplish in his messy, cramped scrawl. “Is there anything else that we can think about? Anything left undone?” He looked out over the crowd of people crammed into Rose’s small living room.

“I need to play the rain,” Rose admitted at once. “That’s one huge task left undone. John?”

“I’m not sure if there’s anything I specifically left undone,” John muttered, thinking hard. “I freed my fireflies, remember?”

“And I lit the forge,” Jade added helpfully. “Dave?”

“Yeah,” Dave drawled, aloof as always. “I didn’t really have some huge task like you did. My objective was just to survive. Ruling the stock market was just a fuckin’ bonus.”

“But I thought, with the Mesa,” Jade said, confused. 

“John scratched the Mesa,” Dave reminded her gently, Jade’s fractured memories from a different universe colliding with her new reality again. 

“Oh,” Jade said, looking away, embarrassed. 

“Which is why we’re here,” Jane said, looking faintly sick. “Because John reset the session.”

“But our planets don’t exist anymore,” Dirk said, expressionless. “They were destroyed tasks and all, and unless you want to retcon some time I don’t see a way to overcome that fact.”

“Which we’re not doing. At all,” Dave decided, his voice firm. “John? No time travel allowed, okay? That’s my division and I say we leave time how it fucking is.”

“Seconded,” Karkat said, glancing worriedly at Dave. “I trust Dave on this.”

Dave looked at the troll then, his normally guarded expression lapsing… tender, maybe? Certainly grateful. Maybe a bit of relief as well. John looked away, uncomfortable. 

He looked back down at the list he’d made. It seemed awfully short. Was this really the best way to save their universe? Have Rose play the rain and right a few small, seemingly inconsequential tasks?

“What about Terezi?” John asked, worrying over the troll who at one point had him murdered. But that was forgiven. It had been years, after all. 

“Gcatavrosprite went after her,” Rose said, adjusting her headband higher on her head as she sighed. She looked exhausted, the wave of vigor she’d been riding this entire house party quickly running out. There were dark circles pressed like ink under her violet eyes. Her whole being looked smudged, so John quietly added _fix rose_ to the list of things to do.

“Speaking of Terezi,” Karkat spoke up, looking particularly like he’d swallowed a lemon. “What about Vriska?”

Silence met his words.

“What about her?” Jade asked. 

“Much like Terezi, Vriska is still technically in the fucking wind,” Karkat said, like it should have been obvious. There was a bite to his voice, his shoulders squared like he was ready for a fight, or at least an argument. “No one knows what happened to her. Terezi’s not an idiot, you know. She’s not out gallivanting around on some endless, hopeless squawk-beast chase,” he said, waving his arms. “There’s a good chance that Vriska’s still alive out there, somewhere, in the old universe.”

Rose nodded slowly, her eyes lighting up. “That’s technically true,” she admitted. “All we know is that Vriska went off to fight Lord English. And didn’t return,” Rose added pointedly. 

“That doesn’t mean she’d dead,” Karkat argued. “Look, I know she’s kind of a massive bitch and that several of us here might have good reasons for not wanting her back, but if she’s alive, wouldn’t she still be counted as a player?” Karkat pressed harder, his face open and eager. “If Vriska is alive, then the game has to recognize her as a player still. Which means, to SBURB, not all of the active players made it to the ultimate reward. There’s still players in the old universe who might still be alive.”

John’s mind was racing as he imagined it. A fractured team, active players still on the playing field, the great cycle of Skaia turning uselessly in its tracks, perpetuating nothing but itself, unable to reach its ending.

“Not to be rude or anything,” Jane spoke up. “But who’s Vriska again?”

“She’s godtier,” Karkat answered tiredly, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“Karkat,” John said, “You’re a genius.”

“But is she alive?” Rose stressed. “This hinges on her not being dead.”

Karkat let out a bitter bark of laughter. “It’s Vriska we’re talking about,” he said. “When has she ever stayed dead for long?” When he spoke again, his voice was tired. “And maybe I’m tired of Terezi hunting for her when we both know good and well that if she’s alive, then we fucking left her behind to rot in a decaying universe.”

“Karkat,” Dave said, concerned as he reached for his boyfriend, then felt all of the eyes tracking his reaching hand and the limb retracted back to his side. 

“Don’t,” Karkat said his voice harsh. “We left her behind, Dave. I get that most of you didn’t like her, fuck, even I’m not sure if I even like her as a person, but you can’t argue that we did the right thing by not even checking to see if she was alive before we went through that doorway.”

John remembered the girl he’d once hoped to meet before he learned she’d been killed, only to have her alive again thanks to his retcon abilities just in time to lose her again. 

Maybe he understood a little of Terezi’s reckless searching. He’d only truly met the troll once and she’d burned so brightly that seven years later he still dreamed about that light she’d given off, that fire in her mismatched eyes that only read as cruel when she’d wanted them to. 

His heart was racing. It felt like he’d stumbled onto something huge, something important. Vriska had gone off to fight the final boss when none of them had dared to, worse, in the chaos that came after they’d raced through that open doorway without hesitation without checking to see if she’d survived her encounter with the villain. 

A godtiered player left to stew within the game. John felt sweat drip down the small of his back. Was she even alive now? It had been seven long years, plenty of time for LE to find her. 

But beyond that, John felt like there was something else he was missing, something just on the tip of his tongue, a whisper in the back of his mind.

Karkat spoke the words for him, giving voice to what John only half-remembered. “And while we’re on the subject of missing and likely alive godtiered players, what the fuck about Aradia? And by extent, Sollux?”

“Who?” Jake asked.

“Shut up!” Karkat hissed at him, black lips brawn back to reveal his teeth. “ _My_ teammates. _My_ friends. More trolls whose undecided fates might be a part of why Skaia hasn’t let us go.”

Dave was nodding along with him, his shades hiding his eyes. 

Rose just looked more exhausted. “And Aradia was godtier too,” she sighed, one hand coming up to cover her mouth. “What have we done?” She looked horrified. “We left them behind. We knew, at the time, that there was a good chance they would still be alive yet we didn’t even hesitate or try to find them before we went through the gateway.”

“My brother would have found us had we dawdled,” Calliope reminded her gently. “We could not have taken the time to look for them.”

“So maybe they’re still there as well,” Karkat argued, blood coloring his cheeks as he passionately argued for his missing friends. “We owe it to them to at least fucking look if we’re going to jump back to the old universe using John’s retcon powers.”

“I think we more than owe it to them,” Rose said, her eyes glowing, the symbol for light shining within them. “In fact, I believe it utterly necessary for us to learn of their fates. John, please write that down.”

John added the three names to the list, feeling frantic. This was it, he felt like this was it. A part of the reason why the world was ending. He looked around the room full of sprites and players and thought for the first time that not all of them were present. He could almost see her, Vriska, see her ghost flitting through the room, mocking him. He blinked and the illusion vanished. In the back of his mind, the black hole yawned. 

“I’ll admit,” Kanaya said, her hand sill on Rose’s slim shoulder. “The thought of seeing my fellow trolls again after so long gives me a certain degree of hope.” She tucked her bottom lip behind her fangs and grinned. “And I have loads of things that I have been waiting to say to a certain Thief.”

Rose looked amused at the thought, or as amused as her lined face would allow. 

Roxy spoke up, her hand in Calliope’s. “Before we begin jumping back into the old universe,” she said, looking worriedly at Rose. “I think, and don’t rip me on this guys…” She trailed off, going silent before Calliope elbowed her. “I think that we should stay here, together, for a few days.”

“Why?” Jane asked, surprised. Her perfectly fixed eyebrows were raised. “I’ve got to get back to work, Roxy. I can’t stay here forever, and the less I have to do with the Game, the better in my opinion.”

“I just think,” Roxy defended. “That, together, we all have some things to discuss between ourselves. Things to go over about this new plan. Strategy stuff… and others,” she tacked on quickly, her voice quiet.

“Like?” Rose pressed. 

Roxy looked guilt. “Like you, Rose,” she said sadly, then her voice gained strength. “Like what the fuck is wrong with you? And how do we fix it?” she stared hard at her ecto-mom. “Do you really believe that you’re in any shape to reenter the game? In your current condition?”

“Don’t fucking pity me,” Rose snapped back, bite in her voice before the exhaustion won her over. “It’s SBURB that’s doing this to me. Once we fully defeat it, I imagine that I can find peace again.”

Something about her wording bothered John. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean exactly what I said,” Rose said, irritated as she sank back down onto the couch, slumping over like it took too much out of her to remain upright. It was a sad sight. 

John wasn’t the only one who caught onto the peculiar wording. Kanaya had honed in on her wife’s avoidance. “Rose, dear,” She said plainly. “Does that mean that you’ll be healed if we succeed in breaking free from Skaia’s dread influence?”

Rose looked away. 

“Rose?” Kanaya asked, her voice a warning. 

“I don’t believe so, no,” Rose admitted as her eyes flickered closed. “What’s going on with me, my condition… it cannot be fixed. Only managed.” She opened her eyes again, unwillingly. “That’s what my prescriptions are for. Fatigue. The migraines. General malaise.” She shrugged her shoulders, the movement small. “Management, not cure.”

“Rose,” Jane said, shocked. 

“Not even you can help this, Jane,” Rose told her. “This isn’t a health issue. It’s me. It’s my classpect. It’s the looming, crushing burden of my Ultimate Self growing closer with each new invasive memory that corrodes away my sanity. It’s inescapable. Inevitable.”

“It’s bullshit,” John said, upset but trying not to show it. “There’s got to be something we can do. I’ve already put you down on our list, Rose. That’s how serious this is.”

She had the audacity to grin at him. “I’m touched,” she said, every ounce of sardonic snark she possessed funneled into her bitterness. “But it’s a failed task from the start. You can’t stop destiny from arriving. That’s why we’re all here isn’t it? Destiny seven years later. We’re still not fucking free.” She closed her eyes again. “And I fear I never will be.”

Kanaya sat beside Rose on the sofa, every motion overbearingly gentle even with the strict tension that was wound through her shoulders. “Rose,” she said, her voice uncertain. “Why have you chosen to conceal this from me?”

“Didn’t want you to worry,” Rose said, slurring her words at little as she leaned her head against her wife’s leg. Kanaya ran her fingers through Rose’s hair, distressed as she looked at Karkat for help. 

Karkat took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said. “Here’s the fucking plan. John? Give me that fucking list.” He reached out and snatched the paper from John’s hands, smoothening it out and squinting at it. “I can’t fucking read this,” he said, insulted. “John? Is this even in your dumb human language?” 

“Yes, it is,” John said defensively. 

“Your handwriting makes wrigglers cry,” Karkat deadpanned, squinting at the words. “Okay. Moving on.” He cleared his throat, growling. “First, Rose needs to play the rain, whatever that fucking means. Secondly, and firstly in my opinion, not that anyone fucking cares about what I have to say about the matter, clearly, we need to find out what the fuck is wrong with our Seer of Light and fucking fix her. Rose,” Karkat leveled a very anger gaze at her, his eyes burning. “How do you expect to complete LOLAR’s task when you can barely fucking stand?”

“That’s my business, not yours,” Rose answered evasive, clearly unwilling to answer. 

“Next,” Karkat continued like she hadn’t spoken, stubbornly trudging ahead. “We find Vriska, Aradia and Sollux, and drag their asses back here dependent on if they’re alive or not, depressing as that fucking sounds. Then,” Karkat said, and John looked at him in surprise. The list was over. That was all they’d come up with. What else was there to say?

Karkat’s voice got really quiet, deadly serious. “Then we figure out what the fuck went wrong with me, Kanaya, and Terezi, and we fucking fix it.” His words ended in a hiss that had the hairs rise at John’s neck. 

“What do you mean?” Jake asked, looking at the only other troll in the room for help, but Kanaya looked like she knew exactly what Karkat was talking about. 

“Oh shit,” Davesprite said, stunned. 

Dave didn’t look much like anything. He just stood there, expressionless as a statue. It kinda freaked John out, these times when it seemed like Dave had gone backwards to when he was 13 and his face was a steel trap of nothingness. For all that he’d warmed up under Karkat’s influence, at the first sign of trouble his expression was always the first thing to go. 

It was freaky, and it let John know that Dave knew exactly what Karkat was talking about. 

“Care to explain?” John asked, and Karkat shot him an annoyed look. 

“See,” the troll begin. “None of you pajama’d fuckers even thought about us before, but what about us? We never godtiered. What happens to us?”

Silence met his words. 

“That’s right, fuckers,” Karkat said, the opposite of smug. “We age and we fucking die.” Karkat stated it like a fact, driving the point home as his red eyes glittered coldly, eyes that had long ago filled in with his vivid blood color when Kanaya’s irises only hinted at jade. “Me long before anyone else.”

John felt slightly sick, faced with the simple fact that Karkat, Kanaya, and Terezi were all technically still mortal. 

“Something went wrong with us,” Karkat went on. “I’m not being stupid. This isn’t wishful thinking. It’s a solid fact that when you win the game, you become a god in the new universe to rule over it. Me? Kanaya? Terezi? Godhood skipped over us when we entered the new universe.”

A flaw, John thought desperately. Something inside his mind slid out of place for a moment, and he caught a glimpse of knowledge that he shouldn’t have known. An error. Something left undone that carried over, not recognizing the validity of the trolls as rulers of a universe only half-won.

John closed his eyes, feeling the pressure build in his head. Was this how Rose felt all the time? Was he having visions now outside of his dreams?

Rose looked similarly stricken. “John?” she asked. 

“John?” Karkat echoed. “What the fuck’s he got to do with this?”

“Did you just see that with me?” Rose asked, sounding scared. 

“I…” John trailed off as the headache built up behind his eyes. “Yes.”

Rose looked like this was the final straw to whatever she’d been running from. She laid her head back down on her wife’s lap as her eyes closed. “Then we are in a far more dire situation that even I previously imagined.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now we're addressing some issues! Next stop-- actually trying to fix things in ways that will surely make everything worse.


	5. A Breadbasket of Choices

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter yay!
> 
> Side note: when will i run out of bread puns or references? the world may never know

John didn’t quite know what to do with himself after the meeting wound down. He didn’t feel like going back to his apartment as the sun fell. Actually, he kinda hated that idea. He didn’t want to be alone right now. 

Jane was the first to go, pledging her return dependent on if she could slip away again tomorrow. It sounded like a promise but John had the feeling that Jane was still set on running away from her problems.

Hypocrite. Wasn’t that exactly what he’d been doing for the last seven years? Running, burying things deep, hoping that through his ignorance things would go back to normal? John couldn’t blame her for her actions, only himself. He understood the why too well. 

John drifted around the bottom floor of Rose’s house as the house guests trickled out in ones and twos. He stopped to admire the pictures they’d hung over the walls, bright, happy scenes from John’s missing years. He saw Roxy as well, Jade, Dave and Karkat standing side by side, captured forever in technicolor still lifes and immortalized in Kanaya’s kitchen. There was a houseplant on the window sill, it’s unfamiliar leaves rolled up tightly for the night. He could see traces of both Rose and Kanaya in this small, cozy kitchen. The jade green curtains had to be Kanaya, while he spotted Rose in the collection of glass wizard figurines that stood solemnly in the cupboard to the side.

Standing there, alone in the small kitchen, John was hit with a wave of vertigo. This house was more of a home than his current abode. It positively leaked a mix of his two friends, small and cluttered and cozy in a way his house could never be. 

That’s where Kanaya found him, standing next to the fridge, its face covered with pictures of all castes of wrigglers in the brooding caverns that he didn’t know. 

Her hands were on her hips. “I think,” Kanaya said. “That we need to have a chat. Just the three of us.”

John just nodded his head, boneless as he followed after her.

Kanaya led him back to the living room, which was empty now except for Rose reclining on the couch.

“John,” Rose greeted him tiredly, lines around her eyes. She cut right to the chase. “Have you ever seen like that before? Like you did earlier?”

“What was that?” John asked, ignoring the question with a hint of unease. “What did it mean?”

“What do you think it meant?” Rose asked, him, rubbing at her temples. 

“I don’t know,” John told her, trying to keep the unfair accusion out of his voice. “I thought that was your job, knowing what these things meant?”

Kanaya narrowed her eyes at him, clearly displeased. “John,” the tall troll said, her sweet voice falsely polite. “My wife is unwell. Please don’t be a bitch about this.”

“Yes,” Rose said, smirking. “Don’t be a bitch, John.”

The two were so alike it was disgusting sometimes. John envied them. “Fine,” he said, flopping into a love seat across from the pair of them. “But you do know the answer, don’t you?”

Kanaya and Rose shared a Look. 

“Yes,” Rose said slowly as Kanaya’s fingers tightened on the arm of the couch, her claws digging in but not piercing the fabric. “Maybe I do.”

“Rose,” Kanaya said, strained. “What is it that you’re not telling me?”

“Nothing, dear,” Rose promised, but it sounded stale. “I’m just, for the first time in a long time, unsure of how best to proceed.” She shot John a sharp glance. “I had a coherent plan, you know, before a certain blue windy idiot threw it out the proverbial window.”

John didn’t back down. “We’re outside of cannon,” he said. “I decided that I had a choice.”

“You always had a choice, John,” Rose reminded him. “To go or not to go. Not this middle thing. Whatever it is that you’re trying to do.”

“Blame Roxy,” John muttered. “She’s the one who brought the bread.”

“What?” Rose asked, confused. 

“Never mind,” John said leaning back. “It’s not important.”

The three of them regarded each other in stalemate. John broke first. “Rose,” he asked, uncertain as the weight of the day’s events hit him. God, he felt so tired. “Am I doing the right thing?”

Rose’s face looked uncharacteristically stern. The difference make her look surprisingly cold. “Right and wrong are irrelevant,” she reminded him. “We went over this. Necessary is the word we should be using.”

That didn’t sit right with John. “But you know the answer,” he said, confused. “You and your ‘Ultimate Self’ bullshit, right? You already know exactly what is going to happen, don’t you?”

“I thought I did,” Rose defended herself. “Then you went off the pathway with this new plan of yours and now I can't see where we’re headed.”

“And yet you voted with me,” John shot back, feeling careless as they went back and forth. 

“I did. I believe, and I still do, that this option is better than doing nothing.”

“Then why tell me nothing was a valid option? Especially if my decision either way could doom everyone?”

“Because you still have free will, John,” Rose said. “The act of you making the choice was nearly as important as its outcome.”

“Well,” John said, shrugging. “My choice has been made.” _Now you all have to deal with it_. The words went unspoken but they all heard them. John refused to grimace. He took a page from Dave’s playbook and kept his expression carefully blank. He had the distinct feeling that he sucked at it, but maybe that was because Rose could read everything he was trying to hide. 

Rose regarded him silently and John had the feeling that this conversation was rapidly going nowhere. 

“I think he best way to proceed is to first gather our forces,” Rose broke, tapping her fingers together. “Whatever we do next, we need to be together.”

“Jane,” John said at once. “She isn’t going to like any of this, but I suppose we can’t go forward without our Life player.” He felt slightly sick at the why. This would probably be incredibly dangerous. People might get hurt. They needed Jane on their side. 

“Likewise, Terezi,” Rose said. Kanaya nodded expectantly. “We need both of them on our side. Jake I’m not worried about. He’ll go where Jane decides. He’s just too used to being indecisive and when put on the spot like that he tends to follow his friends.”

“But Terezi is still missing,” John pointed out sadly. He missed the sharp-tongued troll with a fierce ache. “None of even know where she is or where she could be.”

“Gcatavrosprite went after her,” Rose said softly, looking into the middle distance. “But with the Green Sun gone he has no way to teleport even if he finds her somewhere out there in the depths of this new universe so that plan failed.” Rose shrugged. “What do we do now?”

John cleared his throat, and pulled out his phone one more time. Terezi’s icon was still as gray as before and he had no response from her. “I Pestered her, did you know?” John said turning his phone around. “Her icon is still gray. No response, but I guess there’s hope still that I’ll receive an answer from her.”

“Hope,” Rose said, her eyes freezing over as the godsign of Light shone deep within her irises. “John, that might be exactly what we need.”  
…

 

ectoBiologist (EB) began Pestering golgathasTerror (GT)!

EB: hey jake  
GT: John! Boy howdy is it great to hear from you.  
GT: Listen, I know that I left our little get together early and there was a whole fuss about a vote or some sort that honestly I don’t really understand but hey, no hard feelings mate. I confess last night had me all in a tizzy!  
GT: Dreadful business, if the game is really is back and all that.  
EB: its not like its back. more like it never really ended  
EB: we’re still playing  
GT: Egad, but it can’t be as bad as what you and Rose lined out can it?  
EB: no  
EB: i think it can be much worse  
EB: that’s why i’m doing this—to make a better future, one where all of us can live happily forever. i might not believe in many things, but i do believe in this. right now, we’re at a cross roads  
EB: what we do next will have consequences  
GT: Good ones?  
EB: if we do things right, maybe  
EB: that’s why i’m pestering you. i need your help with something  
GT: What is it? You know I’m always down to lend a hand.  
EB: it’s more like advice really. its about hope  
EB: you see, i need some of it right now  
GT: This is about Terezi isn’t it?  
EB: how did you know?  
GT: I figured that she was the last piece of this puzzle that you and Rose are trying to solve. You know, I never knew her that well. Is it much like her to go rocketing off into space without a word for years?  
EB: not really, but at the same time i understand why she did it  
EB: she did some sort of freaky thing where she bypassed godtiering with more ultimate self bullshit and apparently that taught her something about vriska that she decided she had to find out for herself  
EB: to be honest i don’t really understand it much either, but i guess they love each other  
EB: or at least terezi does  
GT: Wow.  
GT: So what does that have to do with me?  
EB: i’ve been trying to contact terezi since i started this whole plan thing. rose agrees that we need her back before we can move forward  
EB: but gcatavrosprite can’t teleport anymore even if he does find her and she hasn’t answered my messages  
EB: so i was wondering if you could help with that  
EB: hopeing you could anyway  
GT: Hope. This is about hope.  
EB: yes  
GT: I don’t know how much help I can be honestly. It’s been years since I’ve had to do anything explicitly hope related and I was never the best at it.  
GT: I think I sucked really. There was only one time that I actually accomplished anything meaningful after godtiering, and its been so bloody long since ive had to do anything like this.  
GT: What if it doesn’t work?  
EB: then nothing. i guess we keep trying in the mundane ways. i just thought that a boost from you couldn’t hurt  
GT: Okay okay! Maybe I can give the old try a bit of grease and a shake to see what happens  
GT: It certainly can’t hurt, can it?  
EB: exactly!  
GT: So what in specific is it that you’re looking for?  
EB: i just need something that’ll either get terezi back here or at the very least have her answer me back  
EB: rescuing gcatavrosprite would be nice as well, considering that he’s probably hopelessly lost in space now  
GT: Alright. Two things. I hope I can manage something as simple as that.  
EB: i’m sorry to put this on you like this jake, but i was running out of options  
GT: It’s okay mate.  
GT: To be quite frank I enjoy talking to you even when you’re asking for big favors like this.  
GT: I didn’t enjoy those years of silence between us. I know we were never close as friends but before the game ended I had hope that we at least could get to know each other better.  
GT: I’ve explored islands with Jade and took shitty selfies with Dave and had Rose talk circles around me, but I feel like I was robbed by never getting to know you.  
GT: They talked about you all the time, you know. The missing member of their team. They never gave up on you.  
GT: So I have to ask.  
GT: Are you back now? Or is this outreaching just some fluke event? Because I think it would be beyond cruel to reach out to them like this only to pull away again.  
EB: uh…  
EB: i know that i deserved that. i deserve your mistrust. leaving like i did was something that they didn’t deserve.  
EB: but  
EB: its fucking weird  
EB: i feel differently now  
EB: yes. i’m back.  
EB: and this time, i’m not going to leave again  
…

 

John did go immediately back to Rose’s house after waking up the next morning. He felt better after his talk with Jake, but there was still a lot of planning to do. 

“So,” Kanaya said, sitting elegantly beside him as Rose slouched in the chair across form him at their small kitchen table. “What are we planning today?”

Rose rubbed at the bridge of her nose. She looked loads better today, more solid, not as insubstantial. There were still dark rings pressed like ink beneath her eye sockets, but her violet eyes were bright as she downed her second cup of coffee and a handful of blue and red pills. She took them all at once with ease, swallowing down the caffeinated mess in a single gulp. 

“We are planning,” Rose said, “How best to find everyone, considering their last known locations are dated by seven years.”

“Aradia and Sollux chose to remain behind in the Furthest Ring, ferrying ghosts through the dream bubbles,” John said and the memory of his dream rose up around him, the broken screams of ghosts torn asunder as the bubbles popped and bled like fermentatious fragments.

“The Furthest Ring is huge and unfathomable,” Rose said, sighing. “We don’t know where to look even if they’ve survived being out there with LE for this long. Dammit John, Aradia was a time player. There’s no way that Caliborn wouldn’t go after her.”

“And I trust that the two of them can take care of themselves,” John argued as like light breaking through the clouds a new idea struck him. “Shit, if Aradia was time, who are we to say that she didn’t know this would happen? What if we go looking for them and she’s just waiting patiently on the other side for us?”

Rose blinked slowly at him. “That,” she said. “Was a very wise answer.” She turned to her wife. “Kanaya, dear, you know Aradia better than me. Do you think she would have planned this whole thing out?”

Kanaya looked distressed. “Aradia was a Maid,” she said, considering the question carefully. “Not a Seer. But she had grasp of over a thousand alternate timelines once and always knew more than she should have. She even single handedly outsmarted Jack Noir. I would not put this kind of foresight past her, especially when it provides an answer to why she and Sollux chose to remain behind in the first place.”

John felt pumped, like he’d stumbled on an answer he hadn’t even been looking for. “Okay,” he said. “That just leaves Vriska and Terezi if I’m right.”

“And I have a peculiar feeling that when we find them, they’ll be together,” Rose said grimly. “A two for one, if you will.”

“You really think that?” John asked, and Rose grinned at him.

It was not a happy grin. It showed too many teeth for that, maybe a grimace, like a look of pain glossed over with a shiny veneer. 

“I do,” Rose said quietly. “If there’s anyone still alive out there that could find a way to break into our universe, it’s Vriska. And I have a feeling that Terezi will be right there waiting on her.”  
…

 

One week. That’s how long Rose gave him before his plan was put into motion. One week before he was to jump them all back into cannon, evade Lord English, and tweak and poke at the game until cannon hopefully recognized the validity of their win. Saving a few trolls was a good bonus for the task. 

John spent the first day pacing around his empty house. 

On the second day, he went grocery shopping. He bought food with money that he didn’t have and didn’t question the business schematics of the salamander marketplace. The economy functioned; everyone was happy, that’s pretty much all John cared about. It was probably a god perk anyway, and those always made him feel uncomfortable so he didn’t ask why when the kind salamander handed him his items without charging him. 

John went back home to his empty house. He had to pull in more fresh air from outside to erase the stale scent that lingered in the air. He made stew that night. Stew was pretty simple to make, right? Just toss everything into the pot and let it boil for a few hours. 

In any case the stew tasted like watery shit and burnt potatoes but he ate it anyway. It looked like he hadn't inherited Jane's skill with cooking. He went to bed early that night but didn’t do a lot of sleeping.

On the third day John thought he’d go crazy. How had he managed to spend the past years alone? It had only been a few days and he was already wigging out of his mind. Where had his apathy gone? Where was his protective ignorance and refusal to admit that there was an entire world happening outside of his closed doors?

John bit at his lip with preemptive worry as he picked up his phone. It was time to take drastic measures. 

ectoBiologist (EB) began Petering turntechGodhead (TG)! 

EB: hey dave

The response took no more than a few tedious, agonizing seconds that had John waiting on tender hooks. 

TG: sup  
TG: whats hangin

John bit his lips again, unsure if how to best proceed. The silence in his house echoed, the tapping of his fingers against the keyboard of his phone the loudest sound in the world. 

EB: I was just wondering if you’d like to come over and, like, hang out? 

This time the response was immediate.

TG: shit yes  
TG: like rn?  
EB: sure  
EB: i don’t have any thing really for us to do, so maybe you could bring a movie or some thing?  
TG: sure sure  
TG: thats cool sure thing john  
TG: bringing a movie to watch with my best bro is cool as shit with me  
TG: I can be there in like 40 minutes or so ive just got to call a cab that runs to the salamander side of town  
EB: cant you fly like the rest of us?  
TG: well yes but i like to keep my feet on the ground  
TG: ill leave the flying to the rest of you superpowered smucks while i piously walk around with my own two goddamned feet  
TG: in this day and age im pretty sure thats considered fuckin saint-like  
TG: id demand to see my worshippers except im pretty sure i already unironically have a few of those creeping in the woodwork  
TG: hey wait this is off topic but on a scale of one to the full freak the fuck out how badly do you think this planet would react to the sudden appearance of exactly three more troll gods if your plan works  
EB: only two of them are godtier numbnuts  
TG: im counting sollux as well because of we find some way to fix the rest of them with that whole mortality problem then he totally counts  
TG: what was he again classpect wise i can never remember  
EB: do you really expect me to know the answer to that?  
TG: not really no  
TG: he was something that we dont have a double of i remember that much from karkat  
EB: that only leaves like two options you know  
TG: only one actually  
TG: the clown was rage so this sollux guy has to be doom  
TG: fuck that sounds dark what if hes some kind of sociopath  
EB: i’m sure its not that bad. iasn’t he like karkat’s best friend?  
TG: true but i wouldnt really put it past karkat to befriend some kind of sociopath just look at what happened with the clown  
EB: yikes  
TG: yikes is motherfucking right  
EB: what does that say about you then, that you’re the one dating him?

This time, the silence drags on for a long time. Awkwardly long. John had the feeling that he’d just fucked something up somehow. Had he said the wrong thing? He’d shot for gentle teasing, had that been wrong? 

It took a few more minutes before the reply filtered in, oddly small and short for Dave.

TG: were not dating

This time John was sure to choose his words carefully even though he was shocked. 

EB: okay my bad

He quickly changed the subject to avoid the death of the conversation. Dave was equally quick to forgive his idiotic blip.

TG: so anyway im like nearly there  
TG: eta fucking five minutes or some shit so get ready egbert youve got exactly one bona fide strider inbound

John snorted as he answered the red text back, his mind drifting back to what he’d said with a quiet unease. He shot the shit with Dave for a few more minutes, exchanging more mindless drivel and back and forth snap backs over the current state of the ‘meme economy’, which Dave insisted he and Roxy were in complete control of. 

Then the doorbell rang. The sound was wrong, warped and far too tinny from disuse, but John recognized it all the same with a pang of eagerness. He flashed over to the door so fast that his feet left the ground, breezing over there in a gust of wind.

John threw open the door without bothering to check who it was, and there stood Dave with his hands in his pockets. 

“Sup,” Dave said, nodding at John with a wry grin. “I’m here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah. a lot of dialogue. a lot of talking. soon the action will start.


	6. Its the Yeast I Could Do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Its been a week and its time for a new chapter! Woo!
> 
> also to keep this AU in line with the actual epilogs there were a few minor tag changes, plus one big one so you might want to look at them again

Chapter six. 

John instantly felt better as he invited Dave inside his house. Even with his recent social blip it almost felt like he’d gone back in time to the era when he’d sat in his bedroom and hoped and prayed that one day he’d get to see Dave in person. Now it was ten years, a few universes, and a lot of bullshit later but that ecstatic feeling was the same.

“Dave, hey,” John said, incredibly pleased.

Dave’s face thawed at the sound of his voice, a small grin hovering around his mouth. “Hey,” he said back, holding up a rectangular case. “I have the newest version of that carapacian drama that Roxy got Karkat hooked on.”

John snorted through his nose, eyeing the DVD. “Does that mean it’s a chick-flick?”

“That means it’s a _shitty_ chick-flick,” Dave corrected him, smirking now. “Only the best, shittiest drama fling will do for my good bro.”

“Alright,” John said, delighted to watch anything with his friend. “Let’s put it in. I have, like, chips and stuff in the kitchen.”

John caught Dave sneakily looking around his house as he ghosted into the kitchen to grab snacks. Dave might have thought he was being sneaky by hiding his eyes behind those shades John had given him years ago, but John could still tell exactly where Dave’s gaze was pointed as he looked around the small, bland, and utterly unlived in living room. There were no pictures on the walls, the shelves of the entertainment system were bare and empty, but the place was meticulously clean after the last few days of John’s rabid attentions. 

John poured the off brand chips into a large bowl and headed back to the living room, licking the dust from his fingertips. Dave gad already figured out how to pull up the TV and add the disc. That was for the best—John wasn’t sure if he’d have figured that out on his own. He wasn’t even sure if his entertainment system had a DVD player until now.

“Bone appetite,” John said setting the bowl on the coffee table in front of the sofa, purposefully mangling the words. It worked, Dave smiled even as he tried to hide his glee at hearing the shitty meme. 

John flopped over onto the couch as Dave flicked off the lights. The movie began to play.

Dave had been correct—it was some shitty homemade rendition of a badly played game of chess using carapacians acting as real people following the rules of chess, except that interpersonal drama often delayed moves and made reckless decisions common as Dave snickered through a scene involving a girl playing as a rook checkmate the king only to have the knight scream out in betrayal. Somehow they ended up passionately making out as the king tiptoed away hilariously in the background. It was a shitshow from start to finish but John had to admit it was pretty funny.

“So,” Dave asked, turning towards him as the credits began to roll. “What’d’ya think?”

“I think this was a pretty stupid movie,” John admitted, but he smiled to lessen the blow and let Dave know he was teasing.

“You got that right,” Dave said, “but you have to admit the utter brilliance of the sheer amount of nothingness that screams throughout the peripheral of the film. It’s a void recognized but never interacted with—they keep your focus on the shitty drama on screen and never ask why the characters are playing out this sad story in the first place.”

That gave John pause, but he guessed it was just like Dave to read so far into a poorly-produced and edited film. Just the mention of the words void and nothingness made the dream surface briefly in John’s mind, and he felt the days ticking down to the reentry date with a surge of sickness and probably misplaced excitement. 

“I didn’t get any of that,” John admitted, looking past the screen to the dark window outside. “I just thought it was a bad movie.”

“A _purposely_ bad movie,” Dave explained. “One with a deeper meaning not meant to be easily understood.”

“So what’s the deeper meaning then?” John asked curiously. 

Dave stayed quiet until the credits ended and the screen when white with static. The glow reflected oddly off his dark shades. “It’s a commentary on the gods,” he said slowly. “About what we went through in the game.” Dave’s hand fluttered up, waving away John’s next remark. “Young people stuck in arbitrary rules making mistakes at the hands of an unseen villain to play a game they had no chance of winning.”

John’s stomach dropped. Those greasy chips he’d munched on settled like rocks in his belly. “Do you know if they win in the end?”

“Not sure,” Dave said, staring into the middle distance. “The season’s not over yet. No one knows the ending.”

“Can you guess?”

Dave shrugged. “Does it bother you?” He asked suddenly, his shoulders twitching. “In a few days we’ll be back in the game.”

“I don’t want to do it either,” John said slowly. “But its necessary.”

“It’s not about what I want,” Dave said. “I know exactly what I want. This, jumping back into ‘canon’… that’s not it.” He shrugged again, and John could glean absolutely nothing from Dave’s even tone.  
“Honestly? I’m scared shitless,” John said, also not looking at his friend. “But something has to be done and this is the best way to ensure that everyone makes it through to the other side.”

“I thought this was the other side?” Dave said quietly. “I thought we were finished forever.”

“I did too,” John said, unsure of what else to say.

Dave stood up. The sudden movement tilted the chip bowl between them dangerously close to the edge of the couch. “Listen,” he said. “I believe you. I believe Rose. I know the two of you know what’s best and all that and I’ll do whatever needs to be done to put this game behind us one last time, but there’s something that I need to know.”

“What is it?” John asked, apprehensive. 

“Why now?” Dave asked. “Why seven years later on your birthday? What fucking sense does that make?”

“It’s a coincidence.”

“It’s not a coincidence,” Dave said flatly. “It can’t be. This whole mess started on your birthday, and now we’re drug back into it on the same day? There’s a significance somewhere in there, but I can’t figure out what it is and its driving me crazy. Why now? What is it that I’m missing?” Dave’s voice stayed soft and perfectly even. 

“I don’t understand,” John confessed. “Rose just said that was the day I had to make up my mind. I was having dreams about the end of existence long before then.”

“What are they like, these dreams?” Dave asked. 

John shit his eyes. The blackness behind his closed lids reminded him vividly of the nightmares he saw painted to grotesque life each night. “It starts as a weakness, a flaw in the world,” John tried to explain. “But it grows and grows. It consumes. Everything starts coming undone around it and nothing can escape, not light, not time, not even death.”

“Jade called it a black hole,” Dave mused.

“It’s grown past that now,” John said, staring again at the fuzzy void of static on the TV screen. “It’s something else.”

“Like?”

John pressed his palms into his tired eyes until the colors bed around him. “The end,” he said. “It’s an ending now. _The ending_.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Dave said, leaning back. He crossed his arms over his chest, fidgeting. “But how will defeating Lord English stop this black hole from expanding to consume the frog itself?”

“I don’t know,” John admitted. “I don’t know, but Rose said it would work and I trust her.”

“Huh,” Dave said, huffing as he bundled up his shoulders around his neck. The motion was very Karkat-like, trollish, a glimpse of the seven year roommate Dave was apparently Not Dating. 

The words left John’s mouth before he could stop them. “I’m sorry I thought you and Karkat were dating.”

Dave went completely still in an unnatural way, his pale skin washed out under the glare of the TV, then he stammered, rushed. “What? Why? Is it something to be sorry for, that idea? Why? Would that be weird or some shit? Hahaha,” he laughed nervously. “Why would that be weird?”

“It’s not weird,” John defended himself. “I just thought you were dating is all. You did say that you loved him, and you’ve been living together since forever, and…”

“And what?” Dave asked, still clearly nervous. 

“Nothing,” John said, surprised. His fingers tapped nervously at the arm of the sofa. “It was my mistake.”

“Was it a mistake?” Dave toned back. “Jake and Dirk’s disaster of a TV show is a mistake. Bell bottom jeans were a mistake. What about me and Karkat? Is that a mistake?”

“Is what about the two of you a mistake?” John asked, confused. 

Dave shrugged his shoulders in the world’s smallest movement. The position was miserable. “Not being together?”

“Why?” John asked, still badly confused. 

Dave looked right at him, twitching his fingers into fists and then flat out again at his sides. “I can’t talk about this with Rose or Jade,” Dave aid slowly, as if being struck by a sudden recognition. “But maybe you’ll understand.”

“I’ll try,” John promised, readying himself. 

“It’s about me and Karkat,” Dave admitted. “About…like, us, I guess. Together”

“Oh,” John said, surprised as his eyebrows lifted.

Dave frowned at him. “We’re not together,” Dave admitted. “But sometimes or all the fucking time I can’t help but think about how things would change if we were.”

“So you want to date him?” John asked, growing excited.

“It’s not that simple,” Dave sighed. “I thought that after the game we’d take some time out and get to know each other outside of the constant threat of total annihilation, you know? So we moved in together and it’s fucking awesome. I wouldn’t trade that for the world, and I’ve been in the position to trade things away for the fate of existence before so I know exactly what’d I’d give up to keep things as they are.”

“But?” John prompted hearing the unsaid words.

Dave’s slowly sat back down, every second passing like he’d bolt at the slightest sign of danger. It was a slow decent. His knees bent first, then his spine neatly folded him back into his seat with grace even as his shoulders tightened with stress.

“I don’t know why I’m even talking to you about this,” Dave said, almost to himself. “This is supposed to be private shit, you know?”

“I won’t tell anyone,” John told him.

“I know,” Dave nodded. “I think that’s why I’m still here, talking to you I mean. Normally I’d have buried the conversation under ten tons of pure bullshit by now, but I haven’t, because this shit’s serious.”

“Okay.”

“And I don’t know who else to turn to,” Dave admitted. “Roxy’s great but she wants us to go ahead and get together so badly that it’s fuckin weird to even think about opening up to her about this, because she’s already so for it that she wouldn’t stop to think about the actual problems that getting together with Karkat will certainly cause.” Dave made a weird face at that, strained. “And there’s something to be said in itself about feeling pressured into being in a relationship just because everyone for some reason thinks it’ll be a good idea. I hate the pressure everyone’s putting on us to hook up to fulfill some twisted idea they have about us working out. It’s sickening. It makes me ill to even think about what everyone must be thinking and saying about us behind our backs, and we’re not even fucking together.”

John bit down hard on his tongue to stop himself from making a sex joke—Dave had just given him the prefect opening to wreck some havoc, but he kept quiet out of respect for Dave, who had gone beet-red at his last words. 

“So what are the problems?” John asked to give his friend an out.

“Problem one,” Dave said, ticking it off in his fingers. “Is with me. I’ve had years to adjust to the fact that I might not be as completely straight as I was raised to be, but rejecting the toxic and compulsive hetero-ness of my upbringing is step one of ten. Actually dating Karkat would be step ten. I’m currently at step fucking number nine, where all I do is think about him but I’m too afraid to take the next step, because what if I fuck it up?” Dave shuddered, full-body. 

“Problem two,” Dave said. “I love Karkat. I do. I really do. I don’t want to risk losing him because I’m selfish enough to want more than the grace I’ve already found with him.”

“Dave…” John started but was interrupted.

“Problem three,” Dave said, rushed. “Is with Karkat and his obsession with quadrants, which a relationship with me would totally fuck up completely. Humans don’t fit those little boxes trolls were supposed to have on the old Alternia. I spoke briefly with Rose about it, about her and Kanaya’s relationship and how it doesn’t fit into any single quadrant and how they’re happy like that. And I know trolls who were born here never knew that fucked up system and they only loosely follow those weird rules but Karkat’s not like that. Quadrants are all he talks about. That’s what he envisions for himself when he imagines a relationship and I can’t be that. I can’t be what he wants.” Dave’s bewildered voice was distressed. 

“That’s not fair to you,” John protested, shifting hard enough to face Dave that the chip bowl fell to the floor and spilled crisps everywhere. The forgotten snacks lay ignored on the carpet. “You can’t guess at what he wants.”

“Why not?” Dave asked, one eyebrow raised. John had never once regretted giving Dave those shades but right now he wanted nothing more but to see his best friend’s entire face. “Don’t you think if Karkat actually wanted to date me he would have asked already? It’s been seven goddamned years.”

“And you haven’t asked him either,” John reminded him. “Those seven years go both ways, Dave.”

“Maybe,” Dave allowed, swallowing thickly. 

“Has Karkat ever shown any interest in you… like that?” John asked awkwardly. 

Dave laughed bitterly. “Maybe once, two weeks ago,” Dave said. “But I might have been imagining it.”

“What happened?” John asked. 

“I thought we had a moment,” Dave admitted, “An almost-kiss moment. We were so close and for a second I really believed that it would happen, and he kind of leaned in and I did too, but then I freaked out and froze and Karkat backed away again and didn’t talk to me for the rest of the day. I think I freaked him out. What if he didn’t want it?”

“I know Karkat,” John said. “Maybe not as well as you do, but when had that loudmouth ever kept what he didn’t want to himself?”

“Good point,” Dave grumbled, his expression blank as he shrugged again. “So, what do you think I should do when trying to force things makes me want to puke and I’m terrified to lose what I already have?”

John didn’t have any personal experience to draw on, so he said, “That’s a very difficult question,” he said. “But I think you’ve done the right thing in waiting, even if it has taken so long. It sounds like both of you had a lot of things to work through about yourselves, and things like that take time.”

“Ha,” Dae said. “What are a few years to a fuckin’ god of time anyway? Don’t we technically have forever to work with? There’s plenty of time to figure things out.”

“Right,” John said. “You can afford to take all the time the two of you need.”

“Goddamn,” Dave said. “When did you become so wise?”

“I’ve just had a lot of time to think,” John admitted. 

“Is that what you were doing out here the whole time you were gone from us?” Dave asked, motioning around himself to John’s empty house. “Finding yourself?”

“No,” John answered, closing his eyes again. “But I feel like I’m halfway there.”

…

 

John woke up to a new line of messages on his phone from Jake.

GT: I think I’m ready to try that newfangled idea you had.  
GT: I’ve worked a few smaller hope things over the past few days just to see if I’ve still got that spark in me and everything’s worked out so far so I thought to myself, why not give it a quick go?  
EB: you mean it?  
GT: Of course I bloody mean it! Let’s go!  
EB: okay great! when will you do it?  
GT: Right now, I should think. It that okay with you?  
EB: sure  
EB: is there anyting I need to do to help?  
GT: Not really mate. Just leave the believing to me.  
EB: when will i know if it worked?  
GT: If I do it right it should happen instantaneously.  
EB: okay great  
GT: I’m going to go ahead and go for it, so be ready.

John closed his eyes, and he felt his phone buzz in his hand with a new message. When he opened his eyes he saw Terezi’s icon was active and the pester was from her, not Jake. 

gallowsCalibrator (GC) began pestering ectoBiologist (EB) at time unknown!

GC: 1 GOT YOUR M3SS4G3S. 

John flipped back to Jake’s pesterline to provide closure before focusing entirely on Terezi.

EB: terezi, hey. How’s it been?  
GC: 1’M BUSY R1GHT NOW JOHN, TRY TO K33P TH1S SHORT PL34S3. T1M3 DO3SN’T WORK OUT H3R3 L1K3 1T SHOULD.  
EB: i know that’s why i had jake connect us like this!  
GC: J4K3 D1D WH4T?  
EB: yeah this is hope magic connecting us right now. that’s how we’ve synched up to talk linear like this  
GC: OH.  
GC: J4K3. WHY D1D YOU TH1NK 1NVOLV1NG J4K3 W4S A GOOD IDEA.  
EB: becaseu we need you back here by the end of the week.  
GC: WH4T D4Y 1S 1T? 1 LOST TR4CK Y34RS 4GO.  
EB: wednesday  
GC: 1MPOSSIBLE! 3V3N 1F 1 W4NT3D TO GO B4CK 1’D N3V3R M4KE 1T.  
EB: so you’re not coming back?  
GC: JOHN, 1 C4N’T.  
GC: 1 H4VN’T FOUNF H3R Y3T.  
EB: vriska?  
GC: 1S TH3R3 4NYON3 3LS3 LOST OUT H3R3 1N SP4CE?  
EB: well, no  
GC: Y3S IT’S VRISK4 YOU DUMMY.  
EB: terezi. It’s been seven years  
GC: NO 1T HASN’T.  
GC: T1M3 DO3SN’T WORK RIGHT OUT H3R3, R3M3MB3R? FOR M3 1T’S B33N ABOUT 4 Y34R.  
GC: 4ND 1’M G3TT1NG CLOS3R TO F1ND1NG H3R, 1 C4N F33L 1T. VRISK4 1S OUT H3R3 SOM3WH3R3, OR SH3 W1LL B3 SOON. 1’V3 S33N 1T.  
EB: don’t you mean smelled it?  
GC: NO. I M34NT S33N 1T. 1N MY DR34MS. TH4T’S HOW 1 KNOW SH3’S OUT H3R3.  
EB: terezi, vriska might not be all that’s out there. we need you back here because in a few days i’m jumping everyone back into canon and we need you to help us save the world again.  
GC: 1 KNOW.  
GC: 1’VE S33N TH4T TOO. 1 SM3LL3D 1T WH3N TH3 BL4CK HOL3 4T3 TH3 GR33N SUN. 1 SNIFF3D 1T’S SULFURED L1M3 L1GHT BL1NK1NG OUT OF EX1ST4NCE. 1T’S 4 WORLD 34T3R FOR SUR3.  
EB: how long have you know this?  
GC: 4 F3W MONTHS M4YB3.  
EB: and you didn’t think to warn us about this supermassive black hole eating the universe?  
GC: R3L4X EGB3RT. I S4W TH4T ROS3 WOULD SEE 1T TOO 4ND 1 TRUST3D TH4T SH3’D T3LL YOU WH3N YOU N33D3D TO B3 TOLD.  
EB: she told me on my birthday a few days ago.  
GC: 1T H4PP3N3D ON YOUR H4TCHD4Y?  
EB: yeah  
GC: TH4T’S NOT GOOD.  
EB: that’s what dave told me.  
GC: 1’M ST1LL NOT COM1NG B4CK. 1 KNOW TH4TS WH4T YOU W4NT BUT 1TS NOT WH4T YOU N33D. WH4T W3 N33D 1S VR1SK4 B4CK, 4ND TH1S 1S HOW W3 F1ND H3R.  
GC: 1 KN3W 4LL OF TH1S WOULD H4PP3N B3FOR3 1 L3FT—TH4T’S WHY 1 D1D WH4T 1 D1D. L34V1NG.  
GC: I BYP4SS3D GODT13R1NG, R3M3MB3R? 1 4LR34DY KNOW YOUR PL4N 4ND 1’VE 4CT3D ON 1T.  
GC: 1’M NOT COMM1NG B4CK, BUT TRUST M3.  
GC: WH3N TH3 T1M3 COM3S 4ND YOU N33D M3, 1’LL B3 TH3R3. WITH VR1SK4.  
EB: you must really love her to be doing this. i think i’m starting to understand a little more about love and about how this game works, so i can respect what you’ve done and i guess i have to trust you to make the right decisions.  
EB: you clearly know more than i do anyway. i’m no part ultimate self. i’m still just singular john.  
GC: HOW 1S ROS3 DO1NG?  
EB: i’m not going to ask how you even know that she’d been doing poorly.  
GC: 1’M A S33R FUCKNUTS. SO 1S SH3. W3 W3R3 4LW4YS GO1NG TO B3 H1T TH3 H4RD3ST.  
EB: do you know a way to help her?  
GC: 1 C4N’T T3LL YOU TH4T. 1TS NOT FOR M3 TO S4Y.  
EB: come on, please?  
GC: TH3 COURT HAS 4LR34DY P4SS3D DOWN 1T’S RUL31NG ON TH3 M4TT3R! TH3 SUBJ3CT 1S CLOS3D!  
EB: woah sheesh terezi  
EB: i’m just trying to help  
GC: SO 4M 1. T3LL1NG YOU TH4T 4NSW3R WOULD ONLY HURT BOTH YOU 4ND ROS3.  
EB: trust?  
GC: TRUST.  
EB: okay  
EB: *sighs*  
GC: DORK.  
EB: jerk  
GC: B1TCHF4C3  
EB: blind girl  
GC: WOW. 1’M FUCK1NG HURT, EGB3RT.  
EB: i’m sorry  
GC: NO YOU’R3 NOT.  
EB: yeah you’re right.  
EB: hey  
EB: i’m going to log off now, but please don’t vanish again. we still need you and we miss you  
EB: so when the timeline lines up or whatever, you can message me or anyone else, you know. you don’t have to do this alone.  
GC: 1’LL TRY TO R3M3MB3R TH4T.  
EB: okay.  
GC: OK4Y.  
EB: goodbye i guess  
GC: SN1FF Y4 L4T3R 

gallowsCalibrator (GC) has become an idle chum!

…

 

That night, John dreamed in anime again.

_The world, breaking, being devoured by a force beyond his reck and kin. A darkness, the scream of ghosts skimming past the point of no return. A voice like the tone of nothingness itself, laughing as Desolation played it’s instrument in the background, perfectly in tune with the destruction around it._

_Funny,_ John thought in his dreaming. _That laughter sounded almost like Caliborn._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Call out davekat shippers using metatextual analysis AND shove in as much foreshadowing as this chapter can hold with a cryptically helpful/unhelpful terezi? HELL YES


	7. Its Starting to get Kind of Crumby in Here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEW CHAPTER ALERT!!!

Two days left until the end of life as he knew it. 

Again.

John was getting tired of endings and deadlines. Wasn’t that supposed to be a perk of living forever? No deadlines, no more endings?

But he supposed the game had a way of making itself known.

To combat this, John went shopping. He walked down to the salamander corner store to stock up on supplies that immediately went into his sylladex. He wanted medical supplies, rope, food that wouldn’t spoil, flashlights with spare batteries… anything that he thought they might need. His alchemy skills might have been rusty, but he could still program anything else if the need arose.

It was only later that night after he’d gotten back home that he saw the messages. 

gardenGnostic (GG) and gutsyGumshoe (GG) left ectoBiologist (EB) unread messages! 

Wary of Jane’s pester, John clicked on Jade’s name first. 

GG: hey john!  
GG: long time no see! how are you doing?

John hesitated at his ectosister’s message. It seemed innocent enough, but something had his hackles up about the question. 

EB: i’m doing fine now that i have a direction to move in.

The reply was instantaneous. 

GG: direction?  
EB: the game.  
GG: are you happy that we’re jumping back into canon, john?

He considered his answer carefully before he chose honesty. 

EB: i can’t say i’m glad, exactly. i hate the game and i don’t want to play it again, but i am happy to have something important to do. it’s like, before, when i was here but doing nothing, i wasn’t myself. now that there’s some big goal to fight for again, i feel more like myself.  
EB: is that weird?  
GG: i don’t think its weird to feel like that.  
EB: why not? how do you feel?  
GG: me?  
GG: i’m so excited! :D  
GG: do you think that’s weird?  
EB: i’m not sure. why are you excited?  
GG: it’s just that, to me, my entire life was the game. i was dreaming on prospit before i could walk. i always knew about the game and skaia and that i had a destiny to play to help the forces of light win the final battle, and i spend my entire childhood waiting, waiting alone, for the game to start so that i could finally meet my friends and claim the reward I’d spent my life dreaming about.  
GG: but then the game started.  
GG: and i thought it was hard but it so much fun for a little while.  
EB: Yeah. i guess it was a little bit fun in the beginning, before the shit started happening. it was cool to fuck around with the equipment and modify our houses, and talking to each other was neat.  
EB: but things didn’t stay like that for long, you know.  
GG: i know.  
GG: i know that better than anyone except maybe the part of davepeta that was once davesprite.  
GG: remember, this isn’t my original timeline.  
EB: yeah, about that  
EB: its kind of weird to think about, isn’t it?  
GG: weird?  
EB: to think that you’re not the same jade i knew  
GG: and why is that weird?  
EB: i don’t really know. i guess it just is.  
GG: what the fuck john????  
EB: what? did i say something wrong?  
GG: did you say something wrong? did you really just ask me that??!!!  
EB: well shit jade, I’m sorry if I said something to offend you.  
GG: offend me?  
GG: OFFEND ME????  
GG: you really have no clue, d you?  
EB: about what?  
EB: If its something i said just forget it—i can be a dick sometimes i’m sorry  
GG: Sorry? SORRY?  
GG: No! i NEED to say this and you are going to listen to me, john egbert!  
GG: you died.  
GG: and so did dave and rose and i was all alone again for three years until you retconned me into this timeline. i had to do everything on my own with only the faintest hope of meeting you again!  
GG: don’t you know what that did to me???  
GG: all i wanted to do was get back to you, to all of the friends i’d lost  
GG: that’s the dream that kept me alive for those three years, and then i got to see you again, but i wasn’t your jade and you were not my john.  
GG: don’t you understand???  
GG: All i wanted was to see the brother i never got to have, but you rejected me and then there was that whole grimbark thing that frankly hurts me to remember because i was not myself then and i hated it! i hated not being in control, hurting you, but a part of me was glad for it because i was in so much pain and it made me not feel it so badly.  
GG: can’t you see??? i chose mind control over personal autonomy because i was young and scared and hurting and i didn’t know who i was anymore, much less where i stood with you. it was too easy to lose sight of who i was back then and SHE took advantage of that!  
GG: john… you are my brother.  
GG: and after we won the game i thought that i’d have the chance i’d been waiting on to finally be a sister to you, but can you guess what fucking happened?

John’s heart was pounding inside of him as Jade went on.

GG: you weren’t there.  
GG: except that you were, technically, but you were just as gone to me as you were when you were dead  
GG: and i thought for the longest time that it was my fault, because you spent so much time with your jade on the ship that you resented me for not being her.  
GG: it might have taken years, but I know its not my fault that you decided to leave us.  
GG: but i’m still SO MAD at you that i don’t even know what to think or how to act, because you hurt me again and again and i didn’t deserve it!  
GG: i never deserved that from anyone! much less from you!!!  
GG: but i’m trying to be a good enough person to get over it because i know that hurting me was never your intention and we have to work together to defeat sburb and you were once my leader and that kind of respect doesn’t just fade away.  
GG: but i wanted you to know all of this so that you finally understand where i am and who i am—something that you’d never bothered to find out on your own.  
GG: I’ve spent these seven years learning who I am and growing as a person and i thought that i was over you, but then the green sun went out and i KNEW it was skaia and sburb catching us again, because we weren’t free before and i could feel that but i didn’t know how to stop it or help and then you messaged me out of the fucking blue and everything i thought i’d gotten over came flooding back.  
GG: so that’s where i am right now  
GG: that’s why i’m excited that the game is starting again—its my chance to confront you with how i’m feeling and finally have some answers.  
GG: the game was my life and i fucking guess it still is, BECAUSE WITHOUT THE GAME AND WHAT IT DID TO ME, WHO EVEN AM I?  
GG: I thought I knew, but you’ve proven that I’m still the scared little girl I once was somewhere deep, deep down and I am going to rip that part of myself out! I don’t want it!  
GG: so this is my chance to do that—it’s a second shot at the game, but this time things will be on my fucking terms.

John sat back in shock, his phone screen held away from his face. It’s screen was blurred, his eyes wet.

But Jade wasn’t done yet.

GG: so no i don’t think its fucking weird that i’m excited to have a shot at the game again.  
GG: and whatever you have to ay about that I’m not going to listen to, because I AM A BETTER PERSON NOW AND I DON’T NEED THIS SORT OF BULLSHIT IN MY LIFE!  
GG: i am jade harley whether you like that or not!!  
GG: so you can SUCK IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

gardenGnostic (GG) has become an idle chum!

John stared at his phone blankly as Jade’s icon flickered to gray. 

What the fuck just happened????

He set the device down onto the counter with a small tap, his fingertips numb. His brain felt full of fog, but one sharp, clarifying through cut through the stupor.

He’d fucked up. Badly. 

Before he could try to respond, Jane’s icon lit up and his phone pinged from the counter as he got another message in his inbox.

Numbly, he clicked on her icon.

GG: John? Are you there?  
GG: Yes, it’s really me. I opened up my old Pesterchum account in preparation for us going back into the game.  
GG: There’s something I’d like to talk to you about, if you have a moment.

Then there was the latest message.

GG: John? Can you see this?

He answered back on autopilot. 

EB: yeah. just read your pesters, sorry  
EB: what’s up?  
GG: oh, nothing much. I was just wondering something.  
GG: According to you and Rose, we need to go back into canon to assess some things left undone, find a few missing trolls, and do whatever other tasks we need to do. To my knowledge none of these tasks specifically involve me.  
GG: How necessary is it that my presence on this trip is required?  
GG: You see, I’d rather not have anything to do with any of this. At all. I don’t want to go back to the game. I like my life here, I enjoy maintaining my corporations, and they need me t lead them. an expended vacation does not bode well, especially with the changing political climate that I need to help guide onto the right path.  
EB: politics? i didn’t know you were into politics.  
GG: I had aspirations of running in the upcoming election, but Dirk backed out and then this whole SBURB mess happened so I don’t think I will.  
GG: Not this election, anyway. There will be others. That’s one of the perks of living forever I think. I have the time to take my time. There’s no rush.  
EB: oh. that sound kind of cool i guess.  
GG: So you understand? I’m needed here, in the world we created. I don’t need to jump back into the dead one we left behind?  
EB: no, I still think that you’ll be needed even if we don’t have a specific task for you to fulfill.  
GG: As what? A medic? I thought you said there would be no fighting in this plan?  
EB: there’s not, but things go wrong in the game with a frequency that makes our plan certain to go off the rails.  
EB: and its not just about your healing powers. something tells me we all have to be a part of this—no exceptions.  
EB: i’m sorry jane, but you can’t squirm your way out of this. its our responsibility to fix this. the fate of the world you claim to love depends on our success.  
GG: Oh, I understand all that. I just had to make sure there wasn’t an out for me.  
GG: I promise I’ll try my best to help out. the sooner this is over the better.  
EB: thanks jane  
EB: I’m sorry that you have to go through all tis nonsense again, but we need you now  
GG: I know.  
GG: I guess I’ll leave you then. There’s a lot of things for me to do becfore I can take off. Running a corperatioin is no easy feat.  
EB: ok ok, goodnight  
GG: Goodnight, John. Ill see you later.

John threw down his phone this time, freed from talking. He nearly ran into his bedroom, glad to be alone.

He didn’t get a lot of sleep that night. Jade’s words kept haunting him.

…

 

The break of the final day caught Jake and Dirk dueling on the grass outside of Rose’s apartment, thankfully not with guns or swords, just friendly fists. The only good thing to come out of the awful TV show they ran together was that it had kept them both trim and coordinated. The sight did nothing but remind John of how out of shape he’d become. He might have grown up and added muscle, but he’d also grown soft in the middle and loose in his joints, not that he’d ever been as built as Dirk or Jake, or even Jane for that matter. 

John pushed that thought aside as he stepped out of the air and onto the freshly cut grass. It looked like everyone was here, and John’s heart was pounding as the reality of what he was about to do began to sink in in starts and runs. 

Rose was standing, at least. She greeted him warmly, Jane lurking uncertainty in the background, looking uncomfortable in a sharp red power suit embroidered with her company’s logo in crisp white thread.  
“John,” Rose said, no hint of the tiredness that had been hazing around her like an oppressive miasma. She looked bright, active, and ready to kick some ass. “You’re late.”

“Don’t stress,” Dave said, popping into existence at her side as he got in some simple time shit practice right before the deadline. He gave John a tentative smile. “You’re right on time.”

John smiled back, feeling lighter than he had in days even as he spotted Jade lurking in the crowd and felt his stomach drop unpleasantly. 

Karkat trudged around the corner of the house, clearly displeased at all the overpowered god shit going on around him. “Okay, listen up!” He yelled, and the chaos fell quiet as every head turned to face the troll. “I have prepared some rules for our little outing, because in case you fuckers have forgotten, SGRUB wants us all dead and will try its hardest to kill us in creative and increasingly painful ways.”

That sobered up the multicolored group of gods and sprites. A painful silence fell over the crowd as Karkat continued. “I know most of you are either nearly indestructible sprites or immortal gods, but please for the love of fuck remember that you can and will probably be killed.”

“Boo,” John interrupted. “Karkat, no one’s going to die. It’s not like we’re jumping into the middle of a war—we’ve chosen the quietest part of the game to conduct our scheming in. Skaia and Paradox Space won’t even know we’re there until we’re gone.”

“I doubt it’ll be that fucking easy,” Karkat growled. “Nothing ever is, especially in the game. This complacent shit is exactly the kind of thing I’m fucking warning you about! Don’t act like you’re invincible—SGRUB is the one thing that proves you’re not.”

“Karkat, please,” Jane began.

“No, don’t, I’m not listening,” Karkat nearly growled, slapping his hands over his ears. “We’ve had seven years to let peace lull us like woolbeasts. I want everyone to be prepared for the unending mountain of steaming shit the game will inevitably throw at us.”

Most of the group didn’t look overly worried, though John caught a few uneasy glances. He himself was uneasy. He’d died in the game. A lot. Dying fucking sucked and he wasn’t keen on repeating the experience. 

“Follow Rose’s directions,” Karkat ordered, his voice firm. “Don’t take stupid risks, watch each other’s backs, absolutely no heroic deaths allowed, and then we get our asses back on this side of canon as quickly as possible, am I understood?”

Dave looked faintly proud as Karkat finished his speech. Jade was nearly buzzing with retained excitement as she floated with her feet three inches off the ground. She looked the same as ever. Without the memory of their last conversation haunting him, John would have thought she looked the most ready out of all of them. No one protested or questioned the troll—they’d all had days to come to terms with what John was about to do.

“John?” Karkat said, turning to him. “Are you ready?”

John held out his hands in front of him, staring at them. Could he even manage to jump this many people back into canon? What if he failed or messed something up? It had been years since he’d even tried to use his retcon powers. What if he’d lost that ability?

With a sideways twist of though, John stuck one hand up to the wrist into the old universe, feeling around through the boundaries of canon and tearing the fabric of reality across several different planes of existence. An instant later he pulled his hand back and wiggled his fingers experimentally. They were all still there, and nothing had felt off about the inexplicable power he’d used. 

“I think so,” John answered truthfully. “Is everyone else ready?”

“Oh shit man,” Davepeta said, leaning closer with a purr. “We’re doing this. We’re making this happen.”

Dave snorted at his part-alternate self, grinning. His shades flashed in the sunlight, and at his side Karkat’s red eyes were gleaming with determination. Jade looked serious and eager, Rose willing and stable, Roxy uneasy but excited nonetheless. Jake and Dirk stood shoulder-to-shoulder, both looking equally serious. Eve Jane looked ready to go now that the time had come. 

“Everyone link hands,” John ordered, and Rose reached for him, her other hand occupied by Kanaya. To the other side Karkat seized John’s hand and he felt the edges of clawtips dig lightly at him. “Is everyone ready?” He called out, feeling a stutter of nerves leap to sudden, painful life in his belly. 

“We’re good,” Jane said breathlessly. “Just do it. I want this over with already.”

“Okay,” John answered, focusing inward. “If anything goes wrong, I can always jump us all right back here, so no worries. I’ve got this. We’ve got this.”

For a brief, shining second, John felt it, the connected-ness of this group he was forever linked to. This tattered, broken, and healed group of fellow gods and players. They understood him better than anyone else ever would, and the same went for John with them. SBURB had linked them irrevocably. He didn’t want to do this, he didn’t want to deliberately put his friends in harm’s way, but he felt like he needed to.  
In the back of his mind, the black hole yawned and another star system was destroyed, it’s bleeding, inky edge growing closer and closer to their little corner of existence. 

“Just fucking do it,” Karkat said, gripping his hand tightly enough to hurt, pulling John out of his dark thoughts as he focused on the task at hand and then without stopping to double-check or doubt himself, he jumped the entire group back into SBURB canon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow.... after this, the game is on! Literally. 
> 
> We're back in canon now ;)
> 
> And Jade I cri


	8. For the Loaf of Bread

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a late chapter is better than no chapter, so have at it!

They landed in the Medium as the broken Incipisphere turned to brilliant fractured lines overhead as the fabric of reality even now was worn thin. John hadn’t been expecting to get confronted with the breakdown of reality so quickly—they were supposed to have time to gather their bearings first. 

The group stayed packed closely together even as Karkat let go of John’s hand to scowl. “Where the fuck are we?”

They were floating in void, nothingness surrounding them. The two trolls had to be help upright by their neighbors to keep their footing. 

“The edge of the Medium,” Rose answered, the symbol for Light shining briefly in her eyes. “Oh dear,” she said, shocked. “There’s almost nothing left.”

John looked over what remained of existence. The Furthest Ring had contracted down around the fracturing Incipisphere, pulled too close by the gravity of the huge black hole that John could clearly see from where he floated. The yawning maw of the pit beckoned him, and he looked away. 

“Let’s get this done quickly,” John said, already fidgeting as another crack split across the sky. “Jade?”

“I’m on it,” Jade said, her voice tight as she equipped her goggles. No matter what problems the two of them might be having, John knew that right now he could count of his sister to have his back. The computers within her goggles clicked and whirred as she searched all of the remains of the game for Aradia, Sollux, and Vriska. 

She didn’t get any hits.

“Jade?” Karkat asked, his voice shaking as he tried not to show the hope he was even now strangling back.

“I’m trying?” Jade said, straining to locate the missing players. “I can see where Aradia has been jumping through time, but she’s not in the present! I can’t find any of them!”

Dave’s shoulders fell. “Past or future?” he asked, resigned. “Wait shit. It’d have to be past. There is no fucking future here.”

John understood. “Dave—”

“Jade, can I borrow your goggles?” Dave asked. “If Aradia’s alive, she’s clearly smart enough to hide in the past and not risk staying out here in this ongoing clusterfuck of broken time and wasted space.”

Jade slipped her goggles off and handed them to him, biting her lip. “I wish we could go with you,” she said.”

“It’s okay,” Dave said, shrugging, his face heartbreakingly expressionless. I’ll just take a quick jaunt into the past to try and hunt her down. For you it’ll only be a second of waiting.”

Karkat was clearly unhappy. “It’s fucked up that you can’t take any of us with you as backup,” he said. 

Dave shrugged again. “Time is the loneliest aspect,” he said. “I’ll be fine. I can look after myself.”

This was not according to plan. It had been less than five minutes and they were already splitting up.

“Bring her right back here,” Rose ordered. “Then John can jump us all back home and we can proceed to the next step.”

“Right,” Dave nodded, and then his Timestables spun themselves into existence beneath his skilled fingers, and he vanished.

John held his breath as the seconds passed. 

“He’s supposed to be back by now,” Karkat said at once, worried. 

“Wait for it,” Rose said, her eyes struggling to pierce the darkness around them.

There was a flash of red light and Dave popped back into the present, a stocky troll girl with ram’s horns and an eerie smile at his side. She was dressed in the red of a Maid of Time, and beside her was tall, skinny troll with mismatched, washed-out eyes. 

“Hi guys!” Aradia said, waving vigorously. “I’ve been waiting for you!”

John grinned with relief. The two trolls were alive after all and Dave was okay. This was better than expected. He waved back at the troll girl, feeling giddy. 

An echo rang through the Medium like a sigh, an exhale of breath from some fetid beast larger than imagination. The smile fell off Aradia’s face. “We’ve got to go, now,” she said, panicked. “He’s coming.”

Rose seemed to agree. “Everyone, grab hands!” She said, and Dave pulled the two new trolls into the circle just in time for John to grab Karkat’s hand and with a snap, he jumped them back into Rose’s living room.

They hit with a thud, gravity slamming into John all at once as he floated, breathless. “Did it work?” he asked, gnawing at his lower lip with stress. 

Aradia released Dave’s hand, her smile infectious. “So this is the new universe,” she said, looking around with wide burgundy eyes. “Nice.”

“Easy for you to say,” Sollux lisped, patting dust from his clothes. “You can actually see it.” The troll’s red and blue eyes were dull and lifeless, a white sheen over them similar to the awful white glare of a ghost. The troll was clearly bind, and John vaguely remembered something about that from before the game ended. Something about Sollux being half-dead and blind. He wasn’t sure about the details. 

“Oh yes! That reminds me,” Aradia said happily, seizing Sollux’s hands. “Sollux is still half-dead!”

“Half-dead?” Rose asked curiously, falling onto the couch as the strength left her.

“Half-dead?” Jane echoed, her face lighting up. “I might be able to help with that.” 

“Not unless the person, presumably an alien, is a life player like Feferi was,” Sollux growled, his head turning round and around as he tried to take in the new space he was in with his shit vision.

“That’s exactly what I am,” Jane said hesitantly. “A godtiered life player.”

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Sollux said, zeroing in on Jane’s voice. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m one of the four human players that were created when John scratched his session,” Jane answered, her hands flashing green. “We all reached godtier.”

“And you’re a fuckin’ life player then?” Sollux asked, closing his eeys as he swayed to the side. “Can you fix this? I’m stuck halfway between dead and alive due to both Skaia bullshit and self-sacrifice gameplay bullshit and frankly after seven years of this I’m getting really fucking sick of being blind.”

“I can fix your eyes for sure,” Jane said, gaining confidence. “The half-dead thing, maybe? I’m not sure,” she said. “I’ve brought people back before but they were fully dead.”

“I’d like to avoid being fully dead,” Sollux decided. “I’ve been there before. Hated it.”

“Come on, being dead isn’t that bad,” Aradia spoke up, still grinning. “It’s awful, yes, but it’s a necessary part of being alive.”

“Says the immortal godtier,” Sollux muttered, but he shared a wry grin with her before turning back in Jane’s direction. “Okay,” he said. “Fucking hit me.”

“May I touch you?” Jane asked, stepping closer. 

The skinny troll shrugged, thin shoulders moving up and then down in a gesture of careful nonchalance. “Go ahead. I only bite seadwellers.”

Jane put her hands on his shoulders. “This might hurt,” she warned.

Sollux braced himself. “Do it.”

A flash of warm, green light surrounded the pair of them. It was altogether different from the cold green fire of Jade’s powers. It was a warmer glow, serene, like the sunlight in a grassy meadow, and when it faded Sollux blinked around at the room full of anxious players with vivid bi-colored eyes, sparks flashing between the peaks of his twin horns. “Okay, holy shit.”

“Did it work?” John asked.

There was a luster back to the troll’s ashy skin, his eyes bright and active as they roamed across the room to land on Kanaya with a look of shock.

"Holy shit," Sollux said, staring at his hands. "I'm alive again."

Karkat hit the other troll full-speed, embracing him around the middle. “You piece of shit,” he snarled, his voice choked. “Nearly three sweeps! I’ve been waiting nearly three sweeps for your pessimistic ass to get with the fucking memo and come back to us.”

“KK, chill,” Sollux said, laughing as he hugged the shorter troll back, overjoyed to see his friend again. “It was all part of Aradia’s plan.”

What? Had his guesswork been correct after all?

“Sollux,” Kanaya said plainly. “As overjoyed as I am to see you again, the news that this was all some ploy of yours is quite disconcerting.”

“Quite,” Rose seconded. 

“It wasn’t my plan,” Sollux said, defending himself. “It was Aradia’s.”

John turned to stare at the other troll. He hadn’t been around that many trolls before, but there was no way that eerie, knowing smile was normal. 

“I knew it,” John said anyway. “I knew there was a reason the two of you stayed behind.”

“Someone had to look after the ghosts,” Aradia told him, her expression solemn. “Someone had to protect them from Lord English and his great black voidmouth.”

John remembered his dream, ghosts breaking apart against the edges of the black hole, screaming as they were rent apart. He felt sick. That was an awful thing to witness even through dreaming. It was worse to actually imagine Aradia witnessing it, watching as piece by piece her reality was shattered. Maybe that explained her uncanny, forced smile. 

“There’s none of them left,” Aradia said sadly. “Most of them went with Vriska to fight in the great battle. Those few that chose to stay behind were eventually consumed.”

Silence fell. John blinked, his eyes inexplicably watering. 

“Vriska?” Kanaya asked, confused but hopeful. “She was with you?”

“No,” Aradia said. “After John retconned her back to life I lost track of her ghost until she showed back up alive and joined Tavros’s ghost army to go fight the Lord. Not one of them who left returned to the dreambubbles.”

“So she’s dead,” Karkat said, dejected. “I knew it.”

“Not exactly,” Aradia said, her smile eerie again. “I wouldn’t put it past Vriska to show up again.”

“But she’s gone,” Karkat argued, his voice still roughened. “Jade couldn’t find her in the present, Dave didn’t find her in the past, Terezi hasn’t found her in our universe, ergo… dead. She’s got to be dead.” He sounded reverent, like he almost wanted her to be gone just as much as he dreaded that she wasn’t. 

“Karkat,” Aradia said, smiling at him. “Do you know why the voidmouth exists?”

“It’s a creation of Lord English that’s breaking apart reality,” Karkat answered, voicing what was the general consensus for the back hole’s creation. John had seen it up close and personal in his dreams. LE could only pick at so many flaws in Paradox Space before the entire thing began to come unraveled and let a hungry nothingness seep in. 

“Correct, but not all the way right,” Aradia schooled him. “It is in fact a creation of Lord English’s reign of destruction, but there is a purpose to it. He may be one for ceaseless destruction, but there is a grand design to this.”

“Like?” John asked, eager to know more. 

“A fuckin’ purpose to destroy us all, perhaps,” Roxy muttered. “That’s why it’s in our universe too. He’s fucking with us even now.”

“its purpose is to eat a way through the very fabric of existence into this universe, the new universe he was locked out of and denied access to,” Aradia told them, her voice hushed. “LE desires to destroy all of existence, including this universe, so he’s making himself a gateway.”

Calliope gasped, her eyes flashing. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s not possible.”

“It is,” Aradia said. “Once that hole finished feasting itself on enough matter and enough souls, once it _eats_ enough of our existence, it’ll be powerful enough to form a gateway of its own and all LE has to do it simply step through it.”

John gulped. “No,” he said, rejecting it. “That’s bullshit. He can’t just break into our universe!”

“Oh yes, he can,” Karkat said darkly. “Jack Noir broke into our session through a gateway. It makes sense that Lord Green Fuckface is trying to do the same.”

“Exactly,” Aradia nodded. “John, you might have jumped us back here but we are no safer here than back in what’s left of SBURB. It might not take another thousand years, but eventually he will break through and the final battle will begin.”

“I don’t get it,” John snapped back, feeling volatile. “I thought there was supposed to be a choice! I chose not to confront Lord English—that was my decision.”

"I don't know anything about your choices," Aradia told him. "I am not a Seer of Time."

“But I am a Seer of Light,” Rose said, raising her face. “And John’s decisions matter. They carried enough weight to direct the outcome of this timeline. Dave?”

The Knight of Time sighed. “There is currently running, outside of a few timeloops, exactly three total timelines in the new universe,” he said. “Neither of them were created by me. They just sprang into existence about a week ago.”

Rose nodded. “When John made his choice it fractured the timeline into three separate realities, each one depending on what he chose.”

“Is this the Alpha timeline then?” John demanded to know. “Was my choice the right one?”

“There is no alpha timeline, not anymore,” Dave answered. “We’re not ruled over by Paradox Space—there’s no big bad time boss dictating which time branches bear fruit. Right now, we all just… exist.”

That sounded frightening, but John stood tall. “So what do we do now?” 

Rose sat upright, and when she spoke her voice was strong. “We stick to the plan,” she said. “We’ll need Skaia on our side, gods willing.”

Sollux snorted. “We’re all gonna die.”

…

 

ectoBiologist (EB) began Pestering tentacleTherapist (TT) at 10:11pm!

EB: rose? are you there?  
TT: Yes John, I’m here.   
EB: i had a few questions  
TT: Presumably. It was an enlightening conversation we had earlier today. Lots of… troubling content, I would think.   
EB: i thought you said i had a choice.  
TT: You do, and you did. The choice has been made—we cannot escape the path we’re on now.   
EB: what if i don’t like the path we’re on?  
TT: It cannot be changed without retconning the timelines, which would only serve to fracture the timelines even more and so make us weaker against the Lord of Time when he inevitably gets here.  
TT: And he will get here, I believe. I was unsure of this before, but I’m fairly certain of the outcomes now. I can see our path unspooling before us like a silver thread in the moonlight.   
EB: do we win?  
TT: I can’t see that far ahead John. I wish I could tell you we win, but that would be guesswork at best and conjecture at worse.   
TT: I don’t predict the future John—that’s not how my power works.   
EB: i know i know bluh! it’s just so frustrating!  
EB: I thought we were doing the right thing rose but now I’m not so sure and i  
EB: I don’t want to feel lost again  
TT: John…  
TT: We’re still on the right path—look at what we’ve accomplished just one day into our grand adventure. Aradia is back and Sollux is alive, meaning that we’ve gained another godtiered time player who I’m sure will come in handy fighting against a Lord of Time. Plus her information that she gifted us with is nearly invaluable.   
TT: Karkat was reunited with the friend he hasn’t seen in years.  
TT: Aradia was rescued from a dead universe.  
TT: And Sollux was brought back to life.  
TT: All this from just one day of following your plan. Do you really think that the work we’re doing is of so little consequence as to be a mistake? Really John, I thought that you understood how these things worked by now.   
EB: but the plan-  
TT: When has anything ever gone to plan with the Game? And so far, yes, we’re still sticking to the plan.  
EB: ok I am feeling a bit better now  
EB: sorry for being so melodramatic btw I guess im just still working through some things  
TT: That part you said earlier, about feeling lost… did you mean it?  
EB: kinda  
EB: before i had the game to focus on i wasn’t really doing much of anything and my memory of the whole time, years of it, seems fuzzy in comparison. i don’t want to go back to that place. i don’t want to be lonely like that again.  
TT: You were lonely?  
EB: it took me a long time to realize it, but yes.   
TT: You do know that we are here for you, right? Always.  
EB: i know  
EB: even when it doesn’t seem like that, i know you’ve got my back.   
TT: As always.  
TT: Now, goodbye John. I have a lot of resting up to do if we’re going to conquer my planet next.   
EB: yeah look out lolar! rose is coming for you and she’s pissed  
TT: I am not pissed, per say. More like miffed by my own chronic exhaustion. I fear the task will be too much for me to bear.  
EB: remember what you said just then about having my back? well i’ve got yours. and so does jade and dave and kanaya and everyone else.  
EB: even if you’re not strong enough for this, we’ll carry you  
TT: Thank you John. That means the world to me.   
TT: But I do have to sleep now, so goodnight.  
EB: bye! sleep well! 

tentacleTherapist (TT) has become an idle chum!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still struggling to pick up the pace with this fic. i keep getting bogged down in other work and school and work work but I'll keep writing this thing becasue ive got a story to tell even if this chapter is on the shorter side.


	9. The Rolls of Thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry its been so long, but here's the next chapter! I've decided to stick with shorter chapters for now so that I can update more frequently now that I'm getting back into the swing of this story now that I know where its going and what i want tot do with it. They'll get longer I'm sure as the story progresses. I had to do a lot of thinking about how and what I wanted to do considering the two canon timelines (especially since they haven't updated so I have no idea how things will end from that perspective) but I finally know how I want this story to go, so now I have a map to follow. 
> 
> So boom-- new chapter!

John slept without dreaming. Without foul dreams to plague him it was the best night he’d experienced since before his birthday, but he still startled awake to the sound of a hissed whisper. John bolted upright, his heart pounding at the unexpected noise as his eye cut through the darkness of his bedroom.

The noise came again, with words this time, “Hey, over here sleepyhead.”

“Roxy,” John said, with relief as he caught sight of his friend’s face as she hovered outside his window. “What are you doing here?”

“Sneaking you out of your house,” Roxy said, grinning. “Duh. Now come on, Calliope’s waiting on us.”

John sat upright in his nest of blankets, blinking at her as he hesitated, wearing nothing but an overlarge shirt and blue boxers. “Uhhhhh…. Can I get dressed first?”

Roxy laughed and vanished back below the edge of his windowsill. “Only if you hurry!” Came her singsong voice as an answer. 

John quickly fumbled through the dark to locate a presentable outfit and then leaned over the windowsill, peering below at his moonlit yard. 

Calliope waved at him from the grass, wearing a green suit that matched her eyes. Roxy was at her side as John floated down to them, running his fingers through his bedraggled hair. It was very early in the morning, around 4am, and yet he felt wide awake.

“What’s going on?” John asked curiously.

“Shenanigans,” Roxy told him, very Dave-like as she slipped on a pair of heart-shaped sunglasses that reflected the moonlight. John was about to question that until his phone buzzed from his sylladex, a message from Roxy in his inbox. The glasses must have worked similarly to Dave and Dirk’s shades then, able to send and receive pesters. 

John opened the message, slightly confused as to why Roxy would pester him from five feet away. 

tipsyGnostalgic (TG) Pestered ectoBiologist (EB) at 4:13am!  
TG: shhhhhhhh! We’ve got to be sneaky so we don’t wake the salamanders ;)  
TG: can u be sneaky john?  
EB: yeah, fine, okay, i’ll just go along with this without asking any questions whatsoever!

“Roxy,” John said out loud, trying to make sense of the situation. 

“Hush!” Roxy ordered. Calliope giggled, clutching a large, familiar basket at her side. 

His phone beeped again.

TG: we’ve got to be quiet—this is a stealth mission

John sighed as he reluctantly typed back to her, giving in. 

EB: what kind of stealth mission?  
TG: We’re havin a picnic silly!  
EB: i thought we already changed the outcome of all reality with our last picnic?  
TG: I know, now follow us! and be quiet!

Roxy’s feet lifted off the ground as she gracefully flew over the top of the tree that stood in John’s front yard, holding up Calliope.

John followed after them, somewhat curious, somewhat wary. He wasn’t afraid, but he wasn’t sure what was going on either. Roxy flew fast considering she was carrying another person with her, skimming over the tops of the trees as she headed north and east, following the setting moon that squatted pale as a boiled egg in the starry sky.

They didn’t head towards the Carapacian Kingdoms; instead Roxy led him deeper into the interior of the Consort Kingdoms, way outside of the Salamander Village, past the Turtle Towns and Nakodile Cities where the ground gave way to open pits of lava that boiled in the open air, spanned by a network of bridges and walkways that from above cut the glowing light into neat, misshapen slices amid the skyscrapers and towers of a larger Consort city. 

They flew for hours, Joh gazing down at the colorful, crazy kingdom that he technically ruled in name if not in deed. The land was beautiful from above, mountainous and valley-filled, the silver scars of rivers reflecting the moonlight, the rocky ridges peppered with active volcanoes tamed by technology and magic to supply the continent with enough geothermal energy to power three kingdoms. The air was clean and clear, ice-cold in his lungs and playful in the way the Breeze always was when he called to it.

The land was surprisingly peaceful and the sight filled him with deep calm. This was part of the world they’d created. This was a piece of the planet, prosperous and unburdened by stress or struggle. This was what they’d fought so hard to create. 

At last Roxy angled downwards, losing altitude as the sun began to turn the eastern sky gray and soft pink in a span above the horizon. John followed after her. He could see nothing but trees for as far as he could see—they’d left behind all traces of civilization. 

His feet hit the damp grass. The sky had lightened enough for him to make out the pink stripe in Roxy’s hair. Calliope turned to him, still patiently holding the picnic basket in her claws. 

“We’re here!” Roxy called out, and John spotted the break in the grass like a vertical slit in the rocky hillside, revealing the yawning mouth of a cave. 

Joh quickly threw on the brakes, wary. He didn’t like being belowground, cut off from the sky. “Why are we here?” He asked, voicing his concern.

“Davepeta found this place on their journeying,” Calliope told him, her voice hushed though there was no one else around to hear them. “I thought it might be a good idea if you saw it too.”

“Saw what?” John asked, still confused as Roxy herded him towards the dark hole. He didn’t put up much resistance even with his distaste of the underground—he was curious despite himself. What could have urged Roxy and Calliope to lure him all the way out here, especially with everything that was going on?

Roxy decaptchalouged a pair of flashlights and handed one to John, who looked at Calliope curiously as she took no light for herself.

“I can see just fine in the dark,” Calliope said, shrugging.

“They’re just awesome like that,” Roxy muttered, trying to flip her flashlight on and squealing when it did. She aimed the beam into the cave and John copied her. He saw nothing but rocks and dust.

“Come on, its somewhere inside,” Roxy said, hiking into the cave mouth and vanishing inside. 

“After you,” Calliope said, nudging John forward. 

John squared his shoulders and too one last look at the sky before resigning himself to a stark roof of dank, dark earth over his head. 

He hiked belowground, twisting into the narrow tunnel of the cave and following Roxy’s back as she navigated deeper into the cave system, the beam of her flashlight illuminating rocks and crevices that led who knows how deep into this uncomfortable pit. John was not liking this one bit. The air tasted stale and he could physically feel how far away the sky was, all the thousands of pounds of dirt over his head bearing down on him.

Then Roxy’s flashlight hit something red, and then something green, and John’s attention was pulled way form his own discomfort replaced by a curious awe as beneath a layer of dust and grime he recognized the symbol for Time painted in red of the flat wall of the cave. Next to it was the symbol for Life, and the weeping, drippy spiral for Void that Roxy gazed fondly at. John’s flashlight roved across the walls, finding splashed across the cave’s face all of their symbols—Space, Heart, Light, Hope, and there, at the very end and above the rest, in a vivid, nearly glowing blue… Breath. 

John stared at the mark in speechless wonder. “What is this place?” He asked in a whisper. He couldn’t stop staring at the mark. 

“Davepeta thinks this cave was used as an early temple for whatever local race inhabited this part of the world,” Roxy said, her voice lowered. “It’s nice, isn’t it? The idea that thousands of years ago, the people here were waiting on us.” Her fingers curled around the ashen mark for Void, brushing away the years of dust to reveal its hidden glimmer. “I wonder if they thought we were worth it.”

“Roxy,” John said, swallowing thickly. His throat hurt, a lump growing behind his Adam ’s apple. “Why did you bring me here?”

Calliope’s luminous eyes were glowing in the reflected light from Roxy’s flashlight. “I thought it best for you to better understand what you’re up against.”

John felt hot under his collar, his skin itchy. “I already knew that,” he protested. “I know exactly what I’m up against.”

“No, you don’t,” Callie told him. “You still think you’re up against my brother.”

“Am I not?” John argued. 

“No,” Callie said. “Lord English hasn’t been my brother in a long time. He is as divorced from the Caliborn I knew as Dave’s Bro is from Dirk.”

In a way that made sense, but John still argued. “So why bother bringing me here instead of just spitting that out?” He asked. “I get it, I do. I know how dangerous this will be. I know that we might die, okay?”

“Because you don’t get the risk!” Roxy snapped, surprisingly hostile. “It’s not just about us anymore! It’s not just us fucking up and being the ones that suffer for it… Now we have an entire planet full of people that are depending on us to protect them. Don’t you understand that?”

“Roxy,” John said, shocked. 

“And here I thought that being responsible for a single Carapacian town was bad enough,” Roxy said, sniffling as she wiped at her eyes. “Before the Game, I thought that degree of stress alone was too much for one person to handle, but now I have an entire Kingdom looking up to me and together we have the planet itself to look out for because if we don’t stop Lord English he’s going to fucking kill everyone that lives in this place that we’ve built, and isn’t that scary? Aren’t you afraid, John?” Her eyes were pleading like she was begging him to understand something that she hadn’t said out loud, but John didn’t get it.

Was he afraid? John didn’t think so. He felt wary, cautious, but not afraid, not in the spine-paralyzing dreadful gutload of sour bitterness that he’d experienced while in SBURB, his heart beating fast enough that he could taste his pulse in the back of his mouth. 

“I think so,” John answered anyway. “I think I am.”

“Think?” Roxy challenged, fire in her eyes. “You don’t know?”

“Don’t fight,” Calliope chided gently. “We brought food, remember? Let’s eat and forget this. There’s more important things to do than argue about fear.” She set the basket down on the smooth rock floor, her clawed fingers tugging the cloth cover out of the way. 

John could smell the fresh warm sent of the bread from where he stood, and he gravitated closer without conscious thought. 

Roxy steeled herself, wiping at her eyes. “Okay,” she decided. “Let’s eat.” She sat cross-legged in a sinking movement, falling towards the ground and ending up with her legs neatly tucked under her.

John sat heavily beside her, Calliope across from him. The food appeared, rolls with slices of cheese and meat between them, some raw, some deli-sliced. Calliope daintily reached out and snagged a roll between her claws, one of the raw ones. She ate it like she was trying to avoid showing her fangy teeth as much as possible, taking small nibbles. In contrast, Roxy scarfed hers down like a starving wolf. 

Which left John not really feeling hungry as outside the cave the sun rose. He picked at the roll selected for him anyway, trying to be polite about the gifted breakfast. 

They ate in silence. John guessed the rolls were pretty good actually as he warmed up to the idea of food. The bread was warm and flaky, the cheese tangy underneath some kind of mystery bug meat probably imported from the troll Kingdom. 

“Who made these?” John asked, interested.  
“Calliope did,” Roxy answered happily, her miffed attitude from earlier vanished in a way that made John sure she was hiding her true feelings. 

“Really?” John asked, surprised. “She did?” he asked, turning towards Calliope, grinning. He was about to complement her when Roxy gently elbowed him in the side.

“They,” Roxy said quietly, correcting him. “They made the rolls.”

John bit down on his tongue, silencing himself before he could spit out something stupid. Calliope’s vivid green, completely alien eyes were twinkling with merriment as sh—they, watched him with glee. 

“They?” John said, trying out the word for himself.

Calliope nodded shyly, agreeing. “They.”

Roxy was watching him closely, her expression hidden behind the glare of her flashlight. 

“They.” John said again, confirming it as he made the mental switch. They it was. He was such an ally, the best, and he would never again use the wrong pronouns for her. 

Oh Goddammit.

At least he was safe inside his thoughts as he guilty fixed the mistake. 

“Me too,” Roxy said, her voice quiet. “They.”

John blinked in shock, reevaluating the entire span of the last week and a half, all the times he’d referred to them by what was apparently the wrong set of pronouns. 

“When did this happen?” He asked softly. 

“Oh,” Roxy said, shrugging. “A few years back I decided that gender was fake around the same time that Calliope felt comfortable living with the fact that their species doesn’t really do gender the same way most humans and trolls do.”

“Okay,” Jon said, nodding as he forced his mind around this new information. “But if it’s been years, why didn’t I know until now? I’ve been calling you both the wrong thing since my birthday.”

“That’s… complicated,” Rosy explained, shrugging again, but it was a very Dave-like shrug, the kind used to deflect attention. “I only very recently made the change. I had a lot of old shit I had to work through first, you know? About not being one of the only two humans left on the planet anymore, and about how I wanted to experience the rest of my life free from implications of gender I had forced myself to try to fit from back then.”

“Okay,” John said, not really getting it but supportive nonetheless. “They. Both of you. That’s great.”

“Really?” Roxy asked, sounding scared. “You’re really okay with it?”

“Well, yeah,” John said. “Why? Did you think I wouldn’t be?”

“Not exactly,” Calliope admitted. “It’s just that in the past you’ve been amazingly slow on the uptake before, and I didn’t want you to accidentally hurt Roxy’s feelings by being too blunt.”

“Oh,” John said, blinking. “I guess I kinda see your point. I was an ass back then.”

“You were not an ass,” Roxy said, laughing. 

“I was too,” John protested, giggling. “I was the biggest ass. Like… gargantuan.” He held his hands a foot apart for emphasis, sizing up a humongous metaphorical ass.

“Yeah, right,” Roxy scoffed playfully. “I’ve known bigger asses than you, John. Way bigger. What about you, Callie?”

Calliope blinked, setting their claws under their chin in thought. “I think I’ve known the biggest,” they said. “My brother was… quite the ass, if I must say so.”

The admittance sobered John and Roxy up. The casual mention of Lord English the younger had that kind of effect, especially considering the battle John was facing. 

Roxy passed the beam of their flashlight over the godsigns on the walls of the cave again, lingering over Void. “It really puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” Calliope said, shuddering. “He must be stopped. No matter the cost… He must be stopped.”

“Yeah,” John said, looking out over the symbols of his godly friends, contemplating exactly what it meant to do battle with the Lord of Time, remembering the towns and cities filled with countless people he’d flown over on the way here, Roxy’s words about responsibility ringing in his mind. “No matter the cost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK so I agonized over writing the interactions in this chapter because John is such a dense, lovable dumbass, but I think everything turned out ok in the end. Thoughts? I'm by no means a gender expert so I tried to keep everything believable and light-hearted while sticking to canon events and real character things while at the same time showing character growth. 
> 
> Writing is hard. bluh

**Author's Note:**

> This is one fic that I'll be writing as I update it, but Ill still try to keep to my usual weekly schedule. This first bit relied heavily on the cannon prologue, but now cannon is dead and its my fucking city now. 
> 
> strap in--- we've got a happy ending to hunt down
> 
> feel free to drop suggestions at my tumblr if there's any specific thing in the epilogues that you want addressed and fixed


End file.
